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Interview: LI's Kevin Connolly

BY MARK La MONICA | Special to Newsday

June 11, 2006

Kevin Connolly, who plays "E" on the HBO series "Entourage," grew up in Medford and graduated from Patchogue-Medford High School in 1992.

To some, he's the kid from "Rocky V" who bullied Rocky Balboa's son and got his penance on the streets of Philadelphia. To some, he's that dude dating Nicky Hilton. To others, he's the 1991 Homecoming King at Patchogue-Medford High School.

But to in-the-know hipsters, he's "E," the serious but witty manager/best friend of fictional movie star Vincent Chase on "Entourage."

His real name, by the way, is Kevin Connolly.

"Certain people refuse to accept the fact that my name's not 'E,'" Connolly, 32, joked during a recent off-day from shooting the show's third season.

Like that random fan he met one day who kept calling him by his character's name. Or that other guy Connolly encountered once who said he's depressed every Sunday night after the show airs because he has to go to his ho-hum job in his so-not-glamorous office the next morning.

Such is life for a rising Hollywood star on a show about being a rising star in Hollywood. However, the very much down-to-earth actor is definitely not complaining.

"You totally appreciate it," Connolly said of his fans.

It just takes him time to get used to it. Two days before an appearance on "Live With Regis & Kelly" early last week, Connolly confessed to being a "nervous wreck" over it. He wasn't even in New York yet. And he appeared on the show last year, too.

Landing the cover of Entertainment Weekly's Summer TV preview got Connolly as fired up as if his Islanders just won the Stanley Cup.

"I've never been on the cover of anything," he said with I-can't-wait-to-call-my-mom excitement. "The first year, we struggled to get a little corner of Entertainment Weekly. Now we're on the cover."

The path from Patchogue to Hollywood began innocuously at an uncle's wedding when he was 6. A photographer asked to take Connolly's picture.

"He was very cute," his mother, Eileen Connolly, said. "He had a little suit. He had a little John-John haircut."

Eileen soon found her son's face on boxes for inflatable punching bags and pool toys and on television in a Chips Ahoy! commercial. In 1990, Connolly made his film debut in "Rocky V."

After graduating from high school in 1992, Connolly faced a decision most 18-year-olds deal with: What next?

"Everybody went off to college," Connolly said. "I came out here."

Here was, and still is, Los Angeles. Connolly landed a role in the WB sitcom "Unhappily Ever After" for five seasons, beginning in 1995. That gave him some job security in a town not exactly known as an occupational sanctuary. He also directed a few of the later episodes of the show. Connolly went behind the cameras again to direct a short, "Whatever We Do," which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and the feature film "Gardener of Eden," which is in post-production.

Roles in the movies "John Q," "Antwone Fisher" and "The Notebook" showed Connolly's dramatic side.

Then a script for a show about a budding actor and his three pals from New York who find their way in Hollywood came his way.

"I wasn't thrilled with the first pilot script," Connolly said. "But Mark Wahlberg is a serious guy and I wanted to work with him."

Good call, E.