Judgement Day for Jeremy Piven

The day of reckoning will soon be upon Jeremy Piven so he may not be smiling so radiantly.

Whether he was or wasn’t faking the allegedly high levels of mercury poisoning that existed in his system and was the reason as to why he dropped out of the stage production of the Broadway production of “Speed The Plow,” he will now have the chance to prove his claims.

Piven left the production in December citing at the time that he had a massive amount of mercury in his system, in fact six times more than the average human which he blamed on the humble sushi roll that he had apparently been eating since birth and which he held fully responsible for causing the high mercury in his body.

Due to the mercury poisoning he was lackluster, tired and listless and consequently had to leave the show immediately. Amazingly, though he gathered all his strength to attend whatever industry party was to be held during his run of the production, including Britney Spears’ 27th birthday party.

The producers of the show were understandably pissed and after talks failed at a grievance hearing held last month, the show producers and Piven’s people are now heading into arbitration to settle the dispute over his untimely departure from the production.

Both sides will have to meet with a mediator and Piven will need to prove his mercury poisoning both during his rather short run in the play as well as prior to this. The producers have stated that they have "requested a wide range of relevant information from Mr Piven relating to his claims that an alleged illness required him to leave the show".

Piven's spokeswoman Samantha Mast said: "The fact that the producers issued a statement announcing the arbitration dates suggests that this is part of a punitive strategy to intimidate actors so that they ignore serious health symptoms."

She added that fear of being sued would make it more difficult for performers to leave productions due to medical reasons.

Note to spokeswoman, Samantha, you are missing the point, the reason to take the job in the first place is not to think about how you could get out of it.

If an actor has a medical condition that may stop the run of an expensive stage production, then tell the producers that in the first instance and perhaps don’t audition for the part. There are plenty of actors that are more than willing to complete the run of the production solely for this reason – because they want to act.

It’s also called being professional – heard of it Jeremy?