Since producers for Speed-the-Plow lacked star insurance for the bolting Piven, the Actor's Equity hearing is their best chance to receive financial remuneration as well as really, really hurt Piven's feelings in public. And hurt them they shall! Producers have already forced Piven to take a blood test administered by someone other than his musclebound teevee doctor, and Piven will have to present the results as well as a comprehensive detailing of his illness to the committee, comprised of five actors and five producers.

That there is the tricky part, as producers are expected to counter with a log (supplied by Piven's driver) that shows how much late-night partying the supposedly ailing actor engaged in, says the Post. But who needs a driver's log when we have a full assortment of paparazzi photos and tabloid stories that place Piven out and about? Here's a mere sampling of his reconstructed nightlife schedule, put together after a perusal of Getty Images:

October 3: Speed-the-Plow begins preview performances
October 13: Piven attends Filth and Wisdom after-party
October 20: Piven attends Rangers game
October 23: Speed-the-Plow opens, Piven attends late-night after-party
November 5: Piven attends Domenico Vaccas party
November 16: Piven hosts cocktail party to benefit The Piven Theatre Workshop
December 2: Piven crashes Britney Spears's birthday party
December 3: Piven attends celebration for the Capsule Line with Common and Softwear by Microsoft (whatever that is)
December 8: Piven attends after-party for The Wrestler
December 17: Piven bails on Speed-the-Plow

And that log barely scratches the surface of the actor's comprehensive model-corralling. Still, despite Piven's impending peril, at least he can shoehorn a dramatic, Emmy-grabbing storyline into Entourage where he bravely rouses Vince from a Broadway-induced deathbed, then prescribes a recuperative diet of 22-year-olds clad in Kitson baby tees.

• PIVEN'S POISONAL PLEA [NY Post]

And the dodges. So dodgy! Check out this masterful response, after Diane Sawyer brings up the fact that Piven's play-quitting "mercury poisoning" didn't prevent him from hitting the clubs at night: "Let's be really clear: David Mamet is one of the greatest American playwrights." OK then? Strangely, things get even worse from there, as Piven condescends to Sawyer's questions with baleful eyebrows, slowed-down "I'll explain this for the stupids" talking, and such frequent, pointed use of Sawyer's own name that we started taking bets on when he'd call her "glib." Still, kudos to GMA for deciding that when Sawyer read a pull quote about mercury poisoning, one of the interns should mock up a graphic featuring a golden, rotating fish. Delicious (but dangerous!). [GMA]

It was the first time he'd met the media since advancing the much-pilloried sushi excuse, and for the most part, he kept his stories straight. Piven was "brought to his knees" by the mercury overload, he told both People and Us, adding "It feels like the heaviest bout of mono you've ever had in your life." According to Piven (now fish-sober for five months!), he'd actually gone all the way out to Connecticut for a diagnosis "just so it wouldn’t turn into a circus," which is naturally why he would choose an unrelated TV bodybuilder to announce the mercury poisoning to the media.

But what of Moss, who notably "sobbed" at the close of the first Piven-less Speed-the-Plow? People says she got face time with the actor on the red carpet:

"She knows that the second we said go, I've been battling this," Piven says.

Moss also holds no hard feelings over Piven's abrupt departure. "I hadn't actually spoken to him since he left the play," she tells PEOPLE. "It was good to speak to him."

"Sorry, Elisabeth, babe," Piven was heard to have said. "I meant to call, but then I got wrapped up in this whole Sherri Shepherd thing, and then I had to take Ashley to get headshots in Tarzana. How are things going in New York? Not so good? Ah, well, actually I'm not that interested. Sorry—gotta do KNBC and Telemundo before Lindsay Lohan starts wondering why I haven't made it to 'our stall' at Bardot!"

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Jeremy Piven: Mercury Rising [Fox News]

• Jeremy Piven Says Mystery Mercury Illness Was "Crippling" [Us]

• Jeremy Piven Embarrassed by Illness Backlash [People]

According to the New York Post, many involved with the production are pushing to have Piven's high mercury claims examined by a non-musclebound, non-teevee doctor, and they're hoping the result may "squeeze some money out of him." Why has it taken this long to get a second opinion? A lack of insurance:

The producers didn't have star insurance on Piven. If they had, their insurance company would almost certainly investigate the actor's claim before paying out any money.

But under the Actors' Equity contract, the producers are entitled to have Piven's medical records examined by another doctor. If they suspect fraud, they can sue him.

"If it turns out this is phony, it can really kill him," says a veteran producer who's not involved in "Speed-the-Plow." [...]

Several top Broadway producers say that if "Speed-the-Plow" were their show, they'd go after Piven.

"I'd kill the jerk," one says, bluntly.

Though we'd love to brainstorm the sort of hit on Piven that Broadway producers might organize (would it be a murder already beloved on film, but then adapted for musical theater in a splashy megamillion production?), we have a feeling that the Pivs won't be returning to New York anytime soon, depriving them of the pleasure. Will producers then plot out a long-distance attack on his pocketbook and reputation, leaving him with nothing but a 23-year-old rack to cry on? Or will Entourage begin a new season with Ari mysteriously holed up in Canada?

• HOOKS IN FISHY TALE [NY Post]

That's according to E!'s Ted Casablanca...wait! Don't click away! A productive intern has made the usually incomprehensible gossip guru semi-intelligible—just look:

"He was fired," says an integral player in the David Mamet play, about the banal evils of Hollywood. Yep, according to our pivotal insider, J.P. got booted for diva-like behavior. Like what? Like showing up two minutes before showtime, being a general d-bag toward the cast and crew and sending his understudy on if he didn't like the size of the audience.

"He wanted out of his contract for about a month—he was trying to get out of it," says another major Plow player, claiming the Emmy-winner was "disappointed" doin' it live night after night. The mercury poisoning excuse was a way out to save face.

Since we would never impeach Casablanca's credentials and the stories of Piven misbehavior certainly sound true, we've got some advice for the producers of Speed-the-Plow: if you're planning on firing your most famous actor, maybe use the meantime to line up a backup actor with more star power than Norbert Leo Butz. You coulda had the guy from Wings! No, the other guy. No, not Shalhoub! No, not the Sideways one, either. Steven Weber!

• Was Jeremy Piven Fired? [E!]

Shepherd recounted the story today to her cohosts on The View—including a bored, openly contemptuous Barbara Walters. As Shepherd tells it, she upgraded with her miles, landing her and her hyper three-year-old son Jeffrey in a seat right next to the Entourage star. Sadly, Piven was not a fan of the childish talk and incessant shrieking (he also disliked Jeffrey). Somewhere, we imagine even David Mamet musing upon a trapped, Shepherd-adjacent Piven and deciding, "There. That's punishment enough."

• The View [ABC]

The David Mamet comedy grossed $326,559, down nearly $160,000 from the previous week, according to figures released Monday by the Broadway League, the industry's trade organization. The show played to about 50 percent capacity at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

Piven was replaced by his understudy, Jordan Lage, for eight performances.

With figures like that, Speed-the-Plow may not make it til mid-January, when William H. Macy arrives bearing a strict, no-unagi rider. Shoulda gone for Steven Weber when you had the chance, Mamet! Instead, that ardent Wings fanbase must divert its attentions to Farmington, Illinois, where Crystal Bernard is currently knocking them dead in a dinner theatre production of The Fantasticks.
[Photo Credit: AP]

• Grosses tumble at a Piven-less 'Speed-the-Plow' [AP]

First, the New York Post caught up with Piven's "visibly angry" Speed-the-Plow costar, Raul Esparza, "We have not heard from him. We do not know where he is. It's very disappointing when your co-star leaves." Esparza made his level of disappointment clear in the curtain call following yesterday's matinee, says Fox News:

According to those who saw this, Esparza — famous for being outspoken — reamed Piven while [costar Elisabeth] Moss, my sources say, “sobbed.”

“’He said, I’m sure you’ve read the headlines about the silliness in our show.’ Then he said, Today was the first time I really enjoyed playing this show.’ I hope you weren’t expecting a big TV star.” It was pretty emotional.”

So how does Piven combat the actors, playwrights, and investors ("We didn't have star insurance, but we should have had asshole insurance") who have allied against him? With the unbeatable trump card that is a testimonial from Fisher Stevens:

"I believe him. His numbers are off the charts," Stevens, who suffered from mercury poisoning this year, told Page Six. Stevens says that while he was producing his upcoming Sundance entry, "The Cove," a documentary about the slaughter of mercury-loaded dolphins in the Far East, he ate fish four or five times a week. "I started feeling really sluggish and had no energy. It turns out the larger the fish, the higher the levels. I only eat small fish now."

Sadly, this unexpected endorsement found no quarter among Piven's ditched colleagues, who point out that his "mercury poisoning" didn't inhibit his well-documented late-night partying. Also fishy? Piven told friends visiting him that he was "bored out of his mind," and he attempted to line up his friend Steven Weber to replace him. Investors clearly weren't convinced of Weber's star power, preferring instead to conserve it for a touring production that would reteam the Wings star with his former NBC crew (eventually culminating in a terrible curtain call in Iowa City where Tim Daly would denounce Weber as Crystal Bernard buried her Maybelline-streaked face in her hands, weeping, "I never should have done this without Shalhoub!").

[Photo Credit: AP]

• PIVEN'S FISH TALE BEGINS TO STINK [NY Post]

• 'Entourage' Star Bashed For Being Diva [Fox News]

• TOXIC AVENGER [NY Post]

Now, they're going on the record to fill in Piven's repeated attempts to get out of his contract (spoken with the appropriate amount of dry skepticism). The NY Times reports:

Mr. Piven had asked earlier this month to be released from the show a week or two ahead of its Feb. 22 closing date, saying that he was exhausted, Jeffrey Richards, a producer of “Speed-the-Plow,” said. Later, Mr. Richards said, the show’s schedule was modified so that Mr. Piven would be able to attend the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles on Jan. 11.

After making this accommodation, Mr. Richards said, he was informed by Mr. Piven’s representatives that the actor would not return to the show after the Golden Globes. Mr. Piven, he said, had spoken to other actors and managers in an effort to find his own replacement.

“It was rather unusual,” Mr. Richards said. “He was trying to be quote-unquote helpful.”

Sadly, Piven's entreaties were greeted with stunned laughter from alienated comrades John Cusack, Jack Black, and Stephen Dorff, though each reappeared in different guises after an unagi-fueled fainting spell led Piven to a hallucinatory dream worthy of Dickens. The Ghosts of Piven Past (Black, with a shaved-back hairline), Piven Present (a Patron-slamming Dorff) and Piven Future (Cusack as a disembodied voice behind a shaded hood) each attempted to bring the actor to an important self-realization, though a waking Pivs learned no lesson beside "stick to cable."

• Piven Leaves Show Amid Concerns for His Health [NY Times]

According to TMZ, Piven's sushi excuse (which we suppose should warn us off spicy tuna forever but only makes us hungrier every time we type it) was only the latest malady Piven claimed to have in order to get out of performing David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow on Broadway. And who leaked this information to the gossip website? Oh, only one of the show's producers, all of whom clearly hate him now.

Before Jeremy Piven ditched his Broadway show due to sushi-related mercury poisoning, producers say the actor was worried he was suffering from mononucleosis — the dreaded kissing disease.

The show's producer tells TMZ Piven had complained of illnesses from the beginning of the show's run in October. First, says the producer, Piven reported "low-level mono." After that, Piven told producers he was worried he might have Epstein-Barr virus. The final diagnosis, as his doctor stated publicly, was mercury poisoning from a two-a-day raw fish habit.

TMZ also spoke to Piven's barbell-loving MD, Dr. Carlton Coker, who confirmed the Epstein-Barr diagnosis. Sadly, blood tests ruled out also-ran viruses like "cow pox," "fainting disease," "the vapors," and a mysterious debilitation that can only be cured by a controversial dose of Hollywood clubbing.

• Piven Went Mono Before Going to Mercury [TMZ]

Entertainment Tonight is first with a press release from Piven's doctor, Dr. Carlton Colker, that plays like near-parody (yet isn't ridden with the telltale typos that plagued the Blind NBC Spoofer). First, Coker says how disappointed Piven is that Hollywood has not rallied around him during this "health crisis," and then there's this:

"Jeremy has been an avid sushi eater for many years, regularly eating sushi twice in one day. He has also taken certain Chinese herbs, and that, in combination with the frequent sushi consumption, could have led to these elevated mercury levels," Colker explains. He goes on to inform ET that a test revealed that Jeremy had the highest level of mercury that he has ever seen, which amounts to six times a healthy amount of mercury, in his system.

A Hollywood Elsewhere commenter mentioned that Colker is the "same ASSHOLE who I worked with on a reality television show a few years ago. He was an insufferable, egomaniacal douche bag and one of the worst people I ever had to deal with in the six years that I worked in the entertainment industry. Go do some more roids, Colker, you imbecile." This prompted us to do more digging, where we learned that Colker is not just a Fox News-vetted doctor, but a professional bodybuilder who "competed in power lifting in Israel"! Surely, this is the man we would trust when he says, "Take five Chinese herbs and five hundred unagi rolls and call in sick in the morning." [ET]

The play is one of the few on Broadway still going strong, but the Entourage star has been missing more and more performances. Finally, he pulled out, with this doozy of an excuse:

Piven has informed the producers that he hasn’t been feeling well and that the condition is attributable to a high mercury count.

The show’s producers weren’t returning calls, but Daily Variety reached out to David Mamet, who wrote the showbiz satire and seemed skeptical of the reasons for Piven’s departure.

“I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury,” Mamet said. “So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer.”

A burn well north of 98.6, Mr. Mamet. Commenters on the NY Times story suggest that Piven had become increasingly fed up with latecomers and early-goers who refused to stay in their seats to fully savor the mastery of the Pivs. We think it owes more to the low Broadway per diems that left Piven's daily manscape artist/confidante out in the cold, unable to give his boss an outlet for thoughts like, "Why am I doing matinees for blue-hairs when my pecs yearn to breathe free on Carbon Beach?"

[Photo Credit: WENN]

• Piven speeds away from 'Plow' play [Variety]

He's taking a leave of absence from New York University, where he's double-majoring in fine arts and Middle Eastern studies.

"I initially considered trying to do my academic classes during the day and the play at night, but it's probably not a good idea to mix those things at the same time," he told The Post. "It's my first time out, so I'm sure I'll be putting in a lot more hours in the theater than I would on a film set."

Not only that, young Osment, but you potentially just joined charter member Stephen Dorff in the Jeremy Piven Adversary Club, named in honor of the actor making his own Broadway bow this fall in the Mamet revival Speed the Plow. But no worries! Just remember the convenient Piven-bathroom-fight mnemonic, "Back of the line, I'm doing fine. Cut to the john, it's on," and you'll make influential new friends in no time.

• OSMENT: I SEE B'WAY AUDIENCES [NYP]

WHAT'S NEW: Having achieved deafening critical and civilian buzz over the last week, the only remaining question about Iron Man is not if it will kill this weekend, but how it will kill. A close read of the historical record suggests the latest Marvel hero is in for at least an $80 million weekend (including last night's late screenings), but we think that's conservative — accounting for neither repeat viewings nor the Robert Downey Jr. Factor making this as much of an adult treat as a teen/fanboy orgy. We'd be surprised if it didn't break $60 million by Sunday and maybe even $90 million when the dust clears Monday.

Also opening (for what it's worth): Made of Yawner — ahem, Honor, starring Patrick... whoever. Indies of note include the Toronto '07 opener Fugitive Pieces, the coming- of- age- via- sweding- Stallone film Son of Rambow, and the Argentinian teen hermaphrodite drama XXY.

THE BIG LOSER: As long as he's wishing critics dead, we might as well get our money's worth: David Mamet's Jiu-jitsu saga Redbelt isn't so bad, but we expect Iron Man to vanquish its testosterrific charms in the weekend's qualifying rounds before moving on to the more saccharine, sinewy Dr. McDreamy and Co. Come to think of it, the Sony conglomerate as a whole will be missing Spider-Man right... about... now.

THE UNDERDOG: We'll be hearing a bit more from the filmmaker later today, but writer-director Harmony Korine's comeback Mister Lonely is a maverick wack-job of the highest order: A Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) runs off with Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) to a Scottish colony of other celebrity impersonators, while a drunken priest (Werner Herzog) exhorts a troupe of flying nuns a hemisphere away. Infinitely warmer than Korine's previous directing efforts Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy (what isn't?), it's no less hypnotic, funny and confounding.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's this week include The Golden Compass, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 27 Dresses, the reissued Sarah Jessica Parker/Helen Hunt masterpiece of 1985, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and the nifty microbudget drama from director Todd Rohal, The Guatemalan Handshake.

Are we overestimating Iron Man? Underestimating it? Will anyone but our mothers consider seeing Made of Honor in the next three days, if ever? Stake your claim to bragging rights by placing your bets below.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
My idea of perfect happiness is a healthy family, peace between nations, and all the critics die. ...

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? If I were to die and come back as a person or thing, it would be a person. ...

What is your most treasured possession?
My most treasured possession is the urn containing the ashes of my dog Fluff. There is not much difference between contemplating the urn and looking at my current dog, asleep on the couch. But I do not have to walk the urn.

"I have tried to walk the urn, but its stout belly forbids it," Mamet reportedly wrote in an early draft of his questionnaire replies. "Fluff's still heart rejects pills, prods or fists. The urn is blind to me. The urn is blind to mercy. My couch dog's hind legs twitch, knowing that ashen end. Fuck that ashen end. Fuck that urn. Fluff got ugly, and ugly got Fluff. Arf. Huff. Harrumph."

• Proust Questionnaire: David Mamet [Vanity Fair]

boomp3.com

Playwright/filmmaker David Mamet warned the press line at the premiere of his latest film Redbelt to refrain from making references to his prior work. Mamet told the studio's publicist to be on the watch for some wise ass from one of those "Extra Inside Access Entertainment" show who always does a horrible rendition of Alec Baldwin's monologue from Glengary Glen Ross. Mamet said that every time I hear the guy, it makes me feel as if I'm in a community college acting class; what did I ever do deserve this degree of a personal hell?

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]