Jerry Ferrara - Celebrity Byte

by John Gaudiosi

Entourage, HBO's inside look at the life of a rising Hollywood star, has turned the cast into celebrities themselves. Turtle, one of the most memorable characters from the show, is brought to life by die hard gamer Jerry Ferrara.

There's a reason his character has been involved in numerous video game plotlines on the show, and that he's often seen playing a PSP on camera. Ferrara has been a huge gamer his entire life, and he logs enough time gaming online to reach the Top 10 leaderboards on Xbox Live for games like Madden NFL 07, NBA 2K7, and Fight Night Round 3. Ferrara took some time between filming the current season of the show to talk about his love of gaming.

Jerry Ferrara as Turtle (left) with Kevin Dillon as Johnny Drama (right) in a scene from HBO's Entourage. Photo by Claudette Barius/HBO.

What did you used to play in the early days of gaming?

I started with Atari, followed that with Nintendo and went up to Genesis, Sega CD and Dreamcast. I used to play Contra. I still remember the cheat code for unlimited guys in Contra. I also loved sports games like NHL 94, Mike Tyson Punch-Out and Madden.

What do you think of today's gaming innovations?

Now with the Wii and stuff like that, I think it's fantastic. I actually just recently picked up the Nintendo Wii. I think that console is great for a large group of people to have tournaments. I like how games are getting more and more interactive. I think all the consoles are really on the right track.

What are you playing on Wii besides Wii Sports?

Believe it or not, my girlfriend talked me into two games in particular I was a little iffy about -- Trauma Center and Cooking Mama. I didn't think these games were going to be any good, but she and I ended up playing Trauma Center for two days straight. And although it's not the manliest game in the world, Cooking Mama is very, very entertaining.

Being actors, we have a lot of down time on the set -- maybe even up to three hours to kill. Sometimes I'll go back to my trailer with Kevin Dillon and we'll play Guitar Hero II. When that game first came out on PS2, we played it for two weeks straight.

The boys swagger through Ari Gold's office in a scene from Entourage. Photo by Claudette Barius/HBO.

The boys swagger through an office in a scene from Entourage. Photo by Claudette Barius/HBO.

What other consoles do you have?

I have an Xbox 360 and a PS3. I'm dedicating my entire basement to video games. I've only played the PS3 sparingly. I really haven't gotten into it only because I am so into the 360. I kind of favor the 360, if I had to choose. I'm a big, big Halo guy. When Halo first came out we were linking up two Xboxes and playing Capture the Flag. Then I got into online gaming.

What do you think of Xbox Live?

When Halo first came out, I got up to a 32 ranking, but once you get up there a lot of people find glitches and cheats. It gets pretty impossible to stay up there, so I got frustrated with that. I'm a huge online gamer though. That is all I really do when I play games. The online gaming world is literally something that, to me, has made gaming that much better because now you actually get a direct result. It's so much better than just playing the computer. It's also great you can do seasons when playing some of the sports game and you end up simulating 30 to 40 percent of the season and playing the rest.

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