ADRIAN GRENIER

On finding his purpose, learning to adult, and living to see another day.

Words By Elisabeth Hower | October 13 2021

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BEN FINK SHAPIRO

Adrian Grenier is busy. We’ve tried speaking twice before today; scheduling demons and time zone differences required the charm of the third time to finally connect. No wonder it was a challenge: Clickbait, his latest limited-series on Netflix, premiered the week before. I headed into the interview feeling he must be tired of speaking with journalists. How could he not be? However, the man that greeted me on the other end of the line was generous, thoughtful, curious, and kind. If he was tired of conversation, he disguised it with aplomb. Over the course of our chat, I’d come to realize that part of that self-assurance comes in part from a singularity of purpose. Everything in his life is actioned through the lens of personal growth, empowerment, and willingness to change, making for little, if any, separation of work life and private life. “That’s the goal, isn’t it?” He says. “To integrate your work into your lifestyle and vice versa?” First, we must discuss Clickbait, a modern-day cautionary tale of what happens when we accept information/gossip/news, etc., as it’s being fed to us, without discernment, taking it at face value. In other words, catfishing on the highest level. Grenier’s Nick is abducted and forced to hold damning signs in videos uploaded to YouTube, which put his fate quite literally in the hands of the viewers. The higher the hits, the closer he is to death. The series asks, in a world where everyone is an expert, do we still have the courage to think for ourselves? The question is right up Grenier’s alley. “I’ve always looked for projects that have a bit more meaning, and challenged the audience to think a little bit.” It’s not just personal preference, either. It’s a mentality:

“We need all hands on deck these days and we need people to be engaged and present, not checked out. Escapism was great while it lasted but it’s too important right now to create strictly entertainment.”

Adrian Grenier

Photo by Ben Fink Shapiro

These are big ideals, but ones that he’s been putting into action in his own life for some time now. He left Los Angeles to live on a farm outside of Austin, Texas. His Instagram feed is far more full of the adventures of home growing chard than Hollywood parties. For him, the desire to move was deeper than a change of scenery. While he’s made numerous documentaries about the environment, like The Last Drop and is an environmental goodwill ambassador for the UN, he still didn’t feel like he was fully walking his talk. Now he’s growing his own food and planting orchards. He’s even building a rain water catch system to use as irrigation. It’s clear that he’s built his life around serving the earth, and sure, he’d love everyone to do more, but he often feels coerced by a lot of environmentalist. “They throw around images of dying dolphins and then want something of me. I think that’s fundamentally the wrong way to go about things.” He adds, “There’s a lot of anti-human sentiment in environmentalism; humans are the problem. No, humans are the solution.” He means it. But don’t expect a lecture if you run into him somewhere. “There was a time I had no problem preaching to everybody, yelling at the girl at the checkout counter because she put my groceries in plastic bags. Which didn’t help her, didn’t help me, didn’t help the environment, just made everybody unhappy and probably she got a little bit scared.” He continues with a self-effacing chuckle, “Ironically, I can’t tell anyone how to [change], because I’m still working on myself right now.”

Am I operating at my full capacity? Am I healthy? Am I making good sense of the world? Am I able to discern all the conflicting messages put at us every day?

This leads us to a discussion about happiness and the good ol’ fashioned American Dream, which, in light of the last two years, seems to have taken a bit of a hit. With the wealth disparity is only becoming more obvious, is it time to reconsider our goals? “The American Dream. What is that? You work hard and you can have it all?” Plus, he says, “it’s so obviously not true. So many people work so hard for so long and they’re still working, and struggling… We’ve got to evolve out of that and create new goals that are reflective of our current situation.”

It started to become clear that… shared life is worth living.

“For me, it’s a spiritual pursuit,” he says of happiness. “I used to live for myself, my own pleasure, my own indulgence, without really thinking about others. I waslosing people be cause of that.” He also began to see that “reciprocity and shared life is worth living.” He reoriented himself in terms of community, family, nature, future generations. These days, Grenier considers everything in terms of longlasting impact. “How does it play out when I’m gone?” He speaks about planting seeds of trees whose shade he may never enjoy, which has "totally transformed” his life. Thinking about his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren smiling under the shade of those trees gives him an appreciation for the work he’s putting in now. He’s literally and metaphorically planting seeds of change. Enter DuContra, the impact investment firm he co-founded with venture capitalist Ba Minuzzi. It’s a manifestation of his, well, manifesto, and, as he describes it, “the most important work” that he does. “By taking the energy of finance, money, we can use that as a tool and channel it into companies and businesses and humans that are also doing that [sustainable] work.” Their goal, he says, is to empower people, connect them with community, and heal our relationship to money. “The goal is not to make more money, it’s to make the world a better place. How do we improve what we consume, and how we consume it?” Take Heart Water, for example, a new edition to DuContra’s portfolio. They’re an Austin-based company selling alkaline bottled rainwater, so you can literally drink the weather. Nearly a quarter of their profits go to providing clean drinking water to water challenged communities around the world. Which isn’t to say Grenier ignores the bottom line: The company needs to make profit in order to donate it. The goal is to create a business that’s sustainable, that also serves the environment. Good intentions are only as good as the action they create.

Adrian Grenier

Photo by Ben Fink Shapiro

“I look back to the bad behavior, the malevolence, the narcissism, the selfishness, all as a gift of the wisdom I now get to embrace, until I get hit up for another lesson, of course.”

And how does he process all these life lessons? With other men, of course. “Men need men,” he says, “We need to support each other… to face the dragons, especially the ones within us, so we can learn to be dangerous of the betterment of humanity and women and society, not be dangerous in a destructive way.” He continues, “Hopefully we’ll be able to hold space enough to give women some relief from what they’ve had to endure all this time so they can level up in their own way.” It’s refreshing for this female to hear, particularly amid the clangor of power and abuse in Hollywood. “I believe there’s also a very real toxic feminism,” he adds, “But I won’t mansplain about that. I’ll live to see another day, thank you.” He says with a laugh. He takes what’s going on very seriously, but adds, “I don’t like the idea that it’s fatalistic and there’s nothing we can do,” he says. “Because that doesn’t leave room for us take charge and make it different.”

Speaking of intention and action, I ask about the transition away from Hollywood. Was it difficult to set personal boundaries to protect what he was building in Texas? “Setting boundaries was tough because I just wanted everyone to like me,” he says with a laugh, describing his former self. “I’ve been a people pleaser. I wanted to be liked. I mean, shit, I’m a celebrity, I want to be adored,” he chides himself, while recognizing the consequences that kind of behavior may have led to. “I was rewarded for pushing limits, often at the expense of other people. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.” He describes feeling in crisis over his life of indulgence. But that led to a breakthrough. “I realized, fuck, I better grow the fuck Up.”

Different is exactly the way Grenier has lived his life. After we hang up, I think back to my expectations at the beginning of the call. Would I be speaking to a subdued Vincent Chase? Hardly. The man I sat across from was thoughtful and curious. He’d ask, “Could you speak more about that?” And was genuinely interested in hearing my answer. But on reflection, it makes complete sense. It’s his willingness to embrace his curiosity that’s propelled him through life. I, for one, can’t wait to see what he cooks up next. Aside from fresh chard, of course. ■

Adrian Grenier

Photo by Ben Fink Shapiro