Johnny "Drama" Chase

Drama is the older half-brother of popular actor Vincent Chase. Drama has been a C-list actor for most of his career, best known for his starring role as Tarvold in a cult television series, Viking Quest. Later in Entourage, he is cast in another series, Five Towns, which scores 16 million viewers on its premiere. He left the hit show after a run in with a TV executive. Not long after, he was given a holding deal by the network for his own show.

In the first season of Entourage, Drama has not had a serious acting gig for three years. Instead, he is Vincent's chef and fitness consultant, often watching out for his brother and making sure he eats right. His personality is alternately macho and warm-hearted, pompous and insecure. His acting range is limited by a wooden style, but he constantly brings up bit roles he has played over the years in such movies and television shows as Barbershop, Melrose Place,[2] Nash Bridges, The Commish, A Different World, Pacific Blue, Full House, 21 Jump Street, Beverly Hills, 90210, and Star Trek: Voyager as well as a national television commercial for herpes drug Valtrex,[3] and tries to give acting and general Hollywood-related advice to his brother. For example, he helped Vince decide which agency to sign with based on a point system after Vince was thinking about firing Ari. He starred as Tarvold in the fictional science fiction series Viking Quest, which spawned his catchphrase "Victory!". In the episode "Drive", Drama reveals he is a Razzie Award winner. He also revealed that he's directed a couple of short films in the episode "Welcome to the Jungle", after overhearing a conversation where Eric threatens to fire Billy Walsh from the production of Medellin.

He is always looking to capitalize on Vincent's success, which pays off with a supporting role in a film called Queens Boulevard, a bit part in another film Medellin, and an appearance in a flashy Chinese commercial that Vincent does. Although he occasionally finds his little brother's charity emasculating, he almost never turns it down. While it would seem that he is nothing more than a leech, Johnny cares deeply for his brother and the rest of the group, springing to their help when needed. Johnny is a member of the union Screen Actors Guild (SAG).[4]

Drama lands a role as the "older Irish brother" in Five Towns, an Edward Burns television pilot;[5] Burns felt he owed Drama because Drama turned down a role in Burns' successful real-life film The Brothers McMullen, forcing Burns to play it himself. The pilot was picked up in the episode "The Resurrection". After the Five Towns pilot performed very well, Drama effectively resumed a successful career and bought a $1.5 million condominium. He was mistakenly offered a lead role in Rush Hour 3 by Brett Ratner when Ratner's assistant misread the credits in Drama's show and picked Drama instead of his younger co-star. However, Drama still was able to coerce Ratner to give him a role as a French bus driver. During the hiatus of Five Towns, Drama followed Eric, Vince, and Turtle to the Medellin set and successfully secured a role in the film as a military leader who infiltrates Escobar's compound in the movie's climax. However, before this, Drama stirred up trouble by claiming to have received a handjob from the film's lead actress (portrayed by Sofia Vergara), who director Billy Walsh was infatuated with. It is unclear whether this handjob actually occurred, as Turtle finds it unbelievable, coupled with Drama's tendency to exaggerate his macho image, particularly on camera. In the Season 4 season finale, while at the Cannes Film Festival in France greeting the large fan base and cult following of Viking Quest, Drama meets and becomes involved with Jacqueline and begins a long distance relationship with her after he gets back to LA. Drama increased his profile in France inadvertently by having sex on the beach with Jacqueline for three hours. In the end they stop after he sees a large crowd and his friends and brother cheer him on.

Drama claims to be Irish[6] and Chilean,[7] and may be part Japanese.[8] In "Gary's Desk", Drama along with Turtle and Vincent have their own offices in Eric's company, The Murphy Group.

Though it is never shown that Drama is fluent in multiple languages, he has quoted words in Spanish, French, Yiddish and Hebrew.

In the Season Five finale, Johnny becomes the co-owner of a Queens bar with Turtle's cousin Ronnie. Ronnie then had the bar renamed "Johnny Drama's". After that he became a partner with the owner who had to settle a gambling debt problem.

In Season Six, Five Towns is still filming and is still a successful show. This changes for Drama when he threatens Five Towns NBC network executive Dan Coakley after he suspects Coakley is trying to sleep with Turtle's girlfriend, Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Coakley decides that instead of firing Drama, he will convince the writers to torture and humiliate Drama's character on Five Towns. Drama soon decides that he has enough of his character getting bad scenes and tries to get out of his contract on Five Towns and sign on to star on Melrose Place 2009 after Melrose Place producer Phil Yagoda offered him to audition for a role. Drama had been fired from the original Melrose Place series in 1993.

In the season finale, after Drama's agent Lloyd Lee resigns from his secretary position at Ari Gold's agency to accept an offer from Gold's rival, Adam Davies at the Terrence McQuewick Agency, where Gold was fired from in 2005. Drama becomes unstable after hearing Lloyd's departure. Ari and Lloyd compete to get him out of his Five Towns contract and onto Melrose Place 2009. Drama is impressed by Ari's capability, so he verbally agrees to make Ari his permanent agent. However, an impassioned speech by Lloyd convinces Drama that he should remain with Lloyd who is more sincere and concerned for Drama. At the first Melrose Place 2009 audition, Drama fears rejection and has a mild heart attack and mental breakdown, urinating in his pants. Drama then eventually decides that he is an actor and must redo the audition. He does well at the audition, but he is turned down by the network for being "too old". Phil Yagoda then notifies Drama that the network decided that he is ready to have a series created for him and offers an exclusive holding deal, which Drama had never had before. Delighted, Drama and Vince head to Italy to film Vince's new movie. His quote is now at least $100,000 (per episode) higher than it was on Five Towns for which he made $75,000 per episode.

In Season Eight, Drama does voice acting for a new animated series called Johnny's Bananas, an urban comedy where all characters are primarily apes and monkeys. His co-star is Andrew Dice Clay, and the show was created by Billy Walsh. He is also pegged as the lead actor in a TV movie based on a script written by Vince and Walsh.

Viewers of the series are shown that Drama and Vince are in fact related. Turtle once emphasized that Johnny was Vince's half-brother and that Vincent thought Drama was his cousin until Vince was 14. On the HBO Entourage web site, Drama is also referred to as Vince's half-brother.[11]

Vince and Drama share the same last name. They appear to have the same mother in the episode "Aquamom" when Johnny calls himself her "first born". However, Drama calls Vincent's mother "your mom" in the episode "My Maserati Does 185". However, this could possibly be explained as him referring to her informally as mom if she was a main mother figure in his life.

Drama may be simply very close to Vince's mother, Rita Chase, due to the fact that the line in "My Maserati Does 185" about their shared father is a definitive genetical statement said in a genuine sense.[12] This means that Rita may not actually be Drama's biological mother, but either his stepmother and/or adoptive mother, with Vince and Johnny having the same biological father, who was an alcoholic and left the family when both were relatively young.

Rita Chase may indeed be Johnny's biological mother. His line in "Aquamom",[13] along with the fact that "Aquamom" came after "My Maserati Does 185" may support this theory. This creates, what Entourage creator Doug Ellin has referred to as an auto-perspective angle in which the audience can assume one or the other in reference to Johnny's actual parentage.[14]

During Season Six, Johnny mentions his insecurities to the executive producer of Five Towns saying, "It could be my own insecurity about feeling my mother loved Vince more than she does me", alluding that Johnny's mother is Rita. It is believed that Johnny was born shortly after his parents left high school, thus explaining the age gap between himself and Vince.

Drama is at least nine years older than Vince.[15]

• Official HBO web page
• Official page at MySpace
• Entourage Official HBO web page