Famed for his roles on Entourage and The Devil Wears Prada, Adrian Grenier’s method of dealing with internet trolls raises eyebrows.
Adrian Grenier shot to fame in heart-throb roles on Entourage, The Devil Wears Prada and Drive Me Crazy.
But in the intervening years, now 46, he’s graduated to playing the family man on screen while also devoting time to environmental and wildlife causes, which he actively promotes on social media.
And social media is at the core of his new Netflix show, Clickbait, a miniseries that was filmed in Melbourne.
His character Nick, father to two teenage boys, is kidnapped and appears online in a video in which he holds up a sign that he “abuses women”. But it doesn’t gel with the kind, loyal person his family knows him to be. So, is Nick a bad husband and predator or is he the casualty of some scheme?
By the end of the eight episodes, Nick’s status as a villain or victim is less ambiguous than whether another of his Grenier’s famous roles, The Devil Wears Prada’s Nate, is a bad boyfriend.
On the set of Clickbait, while setting his dinner aside in his trailer and caked in bloody make-up, Grenier sat down with news.com.au to talk about his new series, online stalkers, confronting trolls and his now-contentious The Devil Wears Prada role.
What made you want to do Clickbait?
I was immediately intrigued by [the story about] trolls, identity crimes and how technology and image can play a very nefarious roles in our lives. What we thought of as crime from the olden days was very simple. You rob a bank, and the FBI comes after you.
But now there are nuanced ways in which people can be terrible to each other and become isolated. And what that does psychologically to people is so fascinating.
Is that something you’ve been thinking about because you’ve got your own…?
… online stalkers? Yeah.
I was going to say because you have that pledge to turn off social media for one weekend a month.
It’s important that we check our media diet and make sure that we’re not overindulging in the junk food of media, and we get in the real world and connect in real time, tangibly.
But I recently discovered there are cyber criminals who are using my name and money to solicit money from people. They’re reaching out to my fans and trying to convince them to pay for [what they claim are] charitable things.
Wow, that’s horrible. Clickbait is about how people behave online and how they’re different behind that shield of anonymity. Do you think there is something about humans, some base need to make people feel bad? What’s driving this?
There’s a lot of loneliness in the world and the internet and social media exacerbates that, people are increasingly more isolated from each other. There’s a rush, I suppose, when they have a sense of power as a troll.
It’s like a false ego, it’s fleeting but it’s part of our nature, our psychology to bolster that part of us that makes us feel powerful. And that’s somehow indulged when you put other people down or when you get one over on someone else.
You’re pretty active on social media, how you deal with trolls?
The answer to trolls is bringing them to light, exposing them, but not in the same way, not a public shaming like a troll would do. But meeting that troll with the opposite energy because I believe every troll wants to be loved.
So sometimes when people are saying mean things to me, I direct message them and I say, ‘hey, you really feel that way?’. Try and find common ground, and if you put in enough time, you’ll win over in the end.
Really?
100 per cent of the time.
Are they surprised you contacted them?
That’s what they crave, to be acknowledged. They want to be acknowledged and surest way to get attention is by being mean. If you give them the respect and let them know how they’ve made you feel, then they have a chance to empathise.
A lot more times than not, they’ve been bullied themselves or they’ve had that done to them, so because we’re creatures of imitation, people will do that. But you can’t rush it, you have to actually put in the time to give a genuine, humble moment to somebody, without trying to get them to apologise or learn. But just to be there.
So, then it’s not something you do for yourself at all, it’s something you do for them?
Karmically speaking, it’s for myself. Because I want to live in a world where people feel loved and stop being mean to each other.
You can’t save everybody but instead of wasting my energy being outraged or indignant or shocked that people are mean, I’d rather spend my energy in a targeted fashion, though compassion and love.
How often do you respond to trolls?
I don’t respond to everybody. It’s when, if I post something that’s a little bit controversial and has incited some trolliness, I will maybe select one or two to spend some time with.
Because if I really want to post something that inspires people and they’re not absorbing it, and there’s a resistance to it, I have to question my own intention. Am I trying to inspire people to lean into an idea or do I just want them to accept it blindly?
It’s nice when people are like, ‘yay, good post, I agree with you’. It’s an echo chamber. But it now it actually requires that I stand with my ideas and mean it by leaning into it with people who don’t agree.
That’s a very noble effort. Before I let you go, I have to ask about The Devil Wears Prada, which is a little off-topic. Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of discourse, almost a revisionist reaction to Nate, that somehow he’s a really bad boyfriend. What’s your view?
I was unclear about that myself.
I think we’re in the age of the female and we want to support Andy. And Nate is a little bit immature. He’s a young guy and he probably needs Andy a little bit too much for what a woman would want in an adult man.
Very diplomatic.
Edited for length and clarity.
Clickbait is streaming now on Netflix
Share your TV and movies obsessions | @wenleima
The writer travelled to Melbourne as a guest of Netflix
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiqAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L3R2L3N0cmVhbWluZy9jbGlja2JhaXRzLWFkcmlhbi1ncmVuaWVyLWhhcy1hbi11bnVzdWFsLXdheS1vZi1kaXNhcm1pbmctaW50ZXJuZXQtdHJvbGxzL25ld3Mtc3RvcnkvZThmYmZmMWQzN2EzYmQxOWQ4YmE4NmY2Yjk5Yzk1MjfSAawBaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubmV3cy5jb20uYXUvZW50ZXJ0YWlubWVudC90di9zdHJlYW1pbmcvY2xpY2tiYWl0cy1hZHJpYW4tZ3Jlbmllci1oYXMtYW4tdW51c3VhbC13YXktb2YtZGlzYXJtaW5nLWludGVybmV0LXRyb2xscy9uZXdzLXN0b3J5L2U4ZmJmZjFkMzdhM2JkMTlkOGJhODZmNmI5OWM5NTI3P2FtcA?oc=5
2021-08-25 06:42:50Z
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