Mr Selfridge

Season 4 BBC First (*119) 21:00 Drama

While Jeremy Piven is best known as the obnoxious Hollywood agent Ari Gold in comedy series Entourage (2004-2011), that’s a world apart from his most recent role as charming and ambitious US businessman Harry Selfridge in drama series Mr Selfridge (2013-current). Not that he prefers one over the other… “I’m no Hollywood Shark, but I’m certainly no storekeeper either,” he laughs.

1 One thing he does love about playing Harry is that he gets a discount when shopping at the UK department store. “They give me a cut on the price, which is very kind of them,” he says.

2 The 51-year-old Manhattan native was born into showbiz – his dad Bryce and mom Joyce were acting coaches (Bryce passed away in 2002) and his sister Shira is a movie director, producer and actress. Jeremy enrolled to study arts at Drake University in Iowa but he dropped out after his first year. He moved back to New York and went to the famous Tisch School Of The Arts, only to drop out before graduating too.

3 Besides honing his craft, studying gave Jeremy a best friend – his varsity roommate was fellow actor John Cusack and they’ve been “the best of besties” ever since, laughs Jeremy.

4 While he is Jewish, the actor says that he shares a strong affinity for Indian traditions. In 2006 he filmed a Travel Channel documentary called Jeremy Piven’s Journey Of A Lifetime as he travelled through the Eastern country and learnt more about its religions.

5 In 2008 Jeremy was forced to take a break from work after he developed mercury poisoning. He says that “for 20 years I ate fish… do you know how much fish it takes to poison you? A lot!” He took eight months off and was given the all clear in 2009.