Bryan Greenberg laughs ruefully at the question of who’s the better kisser: Alexis Bledel or Uma Thurman?

But he’s one of the few actors around who can answer it, so it needs to be brought up.

“Don’t make me choose,” he pleads by telephone from a Los Angeles press day for the film “The Good Guy,” the film in which his character poaches Bledel from his best friend, which opens in limited release Friday (2/19/10).

He chuckles again and says, “What a tough life I live. I guess it’s a perk of the job. No, really, it’s cool but it’s weird. It’s not as glamorous as you think it would be. It’s a job. It’s technical. People touching you up with makeup, watching: It’s awkward.”

He pauses, then adds cheerfully, “I’ve had worse jobs.”

Such as? “I was a bartender. I worked at Chik-Fil-A. I was a mortgage banker’s assistant.”

None of which prepared him for “The Good Guy,” in which he plays a straight-arrow tech guy at a Wall Street firm in training to be a stockbroker. He did research for the role with writer-director Julio DiPietro, a former stock trader, who took him to watch deals being made.

“I knew nothing about Wall Street,” says Greenberg, 31. “It was a cool look at a whole culture. I was fascinated by how they talk on the phone: They’ve got two phones, one at each ear, with mute buttons, and they’re having multiple conversations and doing deals and playing with a golf club at the same time. And they’re jacked up on Red Bull.

“What they were saying was like a foreign language; Julio had to interpret the jargon for me. It was like I was looking at another species, watching how they physically acted. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about. It’s a very convoluted industry if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Which, he added, explains a lot about the financial crisis that shook the country in late 2008: “We shot this pre-meltdown. Just seeing the life these guys live, the value system they have, it’s no wonder why we are where we are. There are some good people, but there’s a lot of greed involved. It’s one of those things where there are too many people in the industry and not enough commodities to go around. That’s what brought us here.”

Greenberg’s character, Daniel, is the antithesis of the Wall Street hard-chargers: a guy with a moral code who is uncomfortable with the idea of getting over on anyone, whether it’s a customer on the line or a woman in a bar. It’s the first Boy Scout-type that Greenberg has played.

“My character doesn’t vibe with that culture,” he says. “He’s a socially awkward character. He’d rather read a Jane Austen novel than go out to a club. He’s old school, for sure. I’m definitely not that much of a straight arrow. That was what attracted me to the part. I haven’t played a role like this.”

Daniel is also a military veteran, an avionics engineer and pilot, something else Greenberg barely considered for himself: “I thought about the military for a quick second when I was 15. I was in Israel and participated in an Israeli boot camp and thought about joining up. That went away a month later. No way was I joining the Israeli army.”

Born in Omaha and reared in St. Louis, Greenberg moved to Manhattan to go to New York University, working odd jobs and the occasional bit part after graduation, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career.

He got his break in “The Perfect Score,” a 2004 teen comedy that led to the role opposite Thurman in “Prime” (with Meryl Streep playing his psychiatrist mother), as well as a regular role on the TV series, “One Tree Hill.” Since then he’s moved back and forth between TV (“October Road,” “Unscripted”) and films (“Nobel Son,” “Bride Wars”), working regularly enough not to have to hold a day job.

“I feel like every job is my big break,” he says. “Was it the Pizza Hut commercial I did in college? ‘Unscripted’ was a big break. Then doing ‘Prime’ with Meryl Streep – that was my first romantic leading-man role. It’s hard to pinpoint a moment but I guess I’d say ‘Perfect Score.’ I haven’t had another job outside acting since then.”

Since making “The Good Guy,” he’s launched a new TV series: “How to Make It in America,” which had its debut on HBO his past weekend and which, he hopes, has a longer run than “October Road,” which lasted a single season on ABC.

“HBO is different,” Greenberg says. “’October Road’ was an awesome project. It didn’t do well critically, but millions of people watched it. Being on ABC is a totally different beast than HBO. HBO isn’t ratings-based. This is all about word of mouth. HBO doesn’t have to answer to advertisers. If people are talking about it, it’s a success. It’s not so cutthroat as network TV. I love HBO.”

He’s already finished filming the first season of “How to Make It” episodes and so is at loose ends for the moment. But he feels no desperation to find another job.

“I’m at a place in my career where I don’t need to work all the time,” he says. “Rather than work for the sake of working, I’d rather be doing good projects.”

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