Jeremy Piven has suddenly left the cast of the hit Broadway revival of David Mamet's play "Speed-the-Plow." The actor argued that he left due to a high mercury count which was probably caused by eating too much sushi.

The role left vacant by Piven will be taken by Emmy winner William H. Macy, who has a long association with Mamet, and Tony award winner Norbert Leo Butz.

Piven, best known for playing agent Ari Gold on the TV show "Entourage", had six times the normal amount of mercury in his system, said Dr Carlon Colker, who has been treating the actor.

Dr Colker, an attending physician at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, described his patient as an "avid sushi eater" who had sushi at least twice a day.

As for the quite rude comments made by Mamet in an interview to newspaper Daily Variety in which he said that Piven is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer, Dr. Colker described the comments "insensitive... unkind and unfair." He added that the comments "reflect a profound lack of understanding of a problem that can actually kill."

All Jeremy Piven needs now is convalescence and rest and treatment, Dr. Colker told Variety.

Speed-the-Plow, a play which premiered on Broadway at the Royale Theatre in a production by the Lincoln Center Theater on May 3, 1988, revolves around a Hollywood executive and his relationships with a struggling movie producer and an idealistic young assistant. Piven was playing lead character Bobby Gould, the Hollywood mid-level producer striving to put to rest an ages old controversy: art for art’s sake or art for money.