'Entourage's' Lloyd: Hero Of The Hollywood Underclass
Today's LAT profiles TV's most celebrated Gaysian (a title he'll hold until the Heroes producers allow that guy who can stop time to teleport himself out of the closet), Entourage's Lloyd (Rex Lee), whose weekly struggles with an abusive boss provide a template for how to suffer through a thankless job with scene-stealing dignity for the entertainment industry's thousands of oppressed assistants. The Times explains how Lee—fun fact: once an assistant himself—has made the role his own, and notes his ascension to icon of the call-rolling class:
As he sits, posture impeccable, on the shag rug of a pool-side cabana at Beverly Hills' Avalon Hotel (we've moved on), he's recognized by two gleeful diners. Ivy Koral and Evan Cavic are junior managers with a management firm and, says Cavic, "When people don't know what I do, I ask them, 'Do you watch "Entourage"? I'm Lloyd.' " Koral laughs. "I live his life," she says, adding that she once worked for an agent who upset her so much she "had to pull over on the side of the road to throw up."
Lee listens to their stories with sympathy. "I'm shocked by how many people tell me that their bosses really do abuse them," he says, adding that people adore Lloyd because he's an everyman.
Perhaps Lloyd's shining example of grace under agent-induced fire can help those assistants prone to such episodes of reverse-peristaltic panic better deal with their stress; as they feel the bile quickly rising in their throats after enduring yet another threat by their boss to ship their dismembered bodies back to the Nebraska farm from whence they came for improperly conferencing a three-way call, they can take a deep breath, imagine the sassy quip their Entourage hero would employ to defuse a similar situation, and then profusely apologize for their utter inadequacy, knowing that any actual backtalk during their daily tongue-lashing would likely get them fired and/or killed.