They're No Angels

A few hours after dawn, a group of extras suited up to play members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and assembled on a tennis court at a Beverly Hills mansion -- the location for Episode 8 of HBO's industry insider "Entourage." "Just remember," instructed the second second assistant director, "They want everyone to know what Hollywood is like ... on TV." The cast chuckled knowingly.

While other shows about Hollywood ("The Comeback," "Unscripted") have come and gone, "Entourage" starts its third season tonight with the first of 20 episodes, up from 14 last year, which was up from just eight the first season. The stock reason for its success, widely cited by the show's creators and actors, is that "Entourage" isn't really about Hollywood. The series, they say, is about something almost everyone can relate to: the friendship of four young men trying to make it in a world without rules.

Still. What has agents, actors, producers and publicists hooked on the series, despite moderate viewership, is that it also is \o7really\f7 about Hollywood -- the real traffic snarls on PCH, real restaurants on Melrose, real Laker games and real relationships among agents, managers, publicists and actors. "Everyone in Hollywood watches that show," said Brent Bolthouse, the town's premier party promoter. "Everyone in Hollywood can relate. It's all in there."

More than the Urth Caffe, Playboy Mansion or the nightclub Prey, the locals can't wait to see the sly, often mortifying details of their own lives on the screen -- the high-stakes deals hanging on a lunch or a rumor, the short attention spans, the neuroses, the petty humiliations and faux reconciliations. Over the past two seasons, "Let's hug it out, bitch," the peace offering of the tightly coiled yet almost likable agent Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), has worked its way into the local culture. "A lot of people use it, as a joke," said producer Ben Silverman ("The Office"), admitting he says it himself with colleagues.

"Entourage" adroitly blends fact and fiction in this brutish, sunny industry town, Silverman said. "Battles for supremacy go on all day long across Hollywood every day," he said. Who the actual gatekeeper is for a hot young actor like "Entourage's" Vincent Chase "is a real-life struggle playing out every day over lunch," he said.