AP Interview – How to Make It In America

Bryan Greenberg on How to Make it in New York City

NYU grad Bryan Greenberg, 31, has worked his way up from bit parts on TV shows to star in the Wall Street movie “The Good Guy.” But his sexiest role is playing an up-and-coming fashion designer in HBO’s hot new show “How to Make It in America” – so he’s our go-to guy for pointers on making it in New York City.

1. Make sure the deli guy knows you.

Once the guy at the deli below your apartment starts knowing your sandwich before you’ve even ordered it, then you’re no longer a stranger in New York City. That’s a major accomplishment.

2. Know what you want to do.

I’ve been kind of fortunate to know that I always wanted to be an actor and a musician. So I never really strayed from that because I was like, “All right, that’s what I came here to do.”

3. Put yourself out there.

When it comes to making money, you can’t stick with one thing. Sure, I was an actor, but I was also working as a mortgage broker, a waiter, a caterer, a bartender. You’ve got to move around and be shifty and hustle. I was hustling on all ends and going to school at the same time — and auditioning. I didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping.

4. But don’t have a plan B.

If you give yourself an out, you’ll take it. The acting world is so competitive that I knew if I gave myself some sort of backup plan I would never follow through. I would take it because there’s so much rejection and hardship. You’ve just got to convince yourself to go for it if you want to succeed.

5. Find a roommate.

After NYU, I had loans to pay off and rent to pay. It was all about raising funds, getting a roommate, and then getting your girlfriend to move in. It was three people in a small, converted two-bedroom in the East Village, but that’s what we could afford.

6. Work hard, get lucky.

Success doesn’t just happen. I worked really hard to get where I am today. At the same time, I’ve been fortunate to be presented with opportunities. But I wouldn’t say that’s complete luck, because that would discredit all the years of studying and working and going for it.

7. Fall down, get back up.

I remember auditioning during the final round of a Broadway show. I actually got to go on the stage and the bright lights were hitting me on the face. I was ready and all of a sudden I had an out-of-body experience and I was just watching myself audition and screwing it all up. I just tucked my tail between my legs and walked out of there. It was pouring outside and I walked like all the way down to the East Village from Times Square. The whole time, I was thinking, “What am I doing?” That was my lowest point, but I just picked myself back up the next day and started looking for more auditions.

8. Take advantage of New York City.

I feel like there’s a rhythm to the city that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Fall into that rhythm and things just happen. I love running into people on the street and just seeing crazy interactions between strangers. As an artist, you’ve got to be a sponge and there’s no better place to be a sponge than in New York. There are so many crazy stories that unfold every day that you’ll see just by walking the streets.

(Source)

Bryan Greenberg (The Good Guy)

For the most part, Wall Street has been glorified as the destination for the elite, a place where multi-million dollar deals and lunches at Masa happen before the closing bells chime. In the new film, by first time director Julio DePietro and former investment banker, The Good Guy takes a raw and honest look at life on Wall Street for young twenty-something Manhattanites.

The Good Guy examines the relationships of Beth (Alexis Bledel), her boyfriend Tommy (Scott Porter), and their new friend Daniel (Bryan Greenberg). The film goes beyond being about a torrid love triangle; it observes the life of a young adult working and living in Manhattan. Like any relationship, these characters are dealt endearingly beautiful moments that are soon forgotten by betrayal and dishonesty.

Trapped in a NYC blizzard, PopStar spoke with Bryan Greenberg over the phone about his role as Daniel, the newbie to the Wall Street world. Greenberg, who is currently starring in the hit HBO show How to Make It in America, was thrilled to talk about the role in this film. Nursing a broken wrist, the musician/actor jumps into the interview and talks about his unique character study of Daniel for this role.

For many of us, Bryan Greenberg caught our attention as Jake Jagielski, the hardworking young father on One Tree Hill. When Greenberg left the show in 2006, many fans held on hoping that Jake and Peyton reunite, but sadly that never happened. The good news for fans was that in 2007, Greenberg was starring on another primetime hit October Road alongside That 70’s Show (TV) star Laura Prepon. After a two season run, the show ended and Greenberg moved to the big screen, starring in 20th Century Fox’s Bride Wars as the onscreen brother of Kate Hudson and husband of Anne Hathaway.

Greenberg is back on the big screen, playing Daniel, a young guy who has left the army and moved to NYC to begin his life in the film The Good Guy. Upon meeting Tommy (Scott Porter), the high-powered Wall Street consultant, Daniel quickly gets sucked into the world of power and greed. Enter Beth, played by Alexis Bledel. Beth is Tommy’s girlfriend, but has a strong connection with Daniel, but the question is, how strong? Last week, PopStar spoke with Bryan about life on location in NYC, similarities between him and his introverted character and Bryan even provided very good reasons on why you should get out and go see The Good Guy!

In the upcoming film, The Good Guy, you play Daniel, the newcomer to the fast-paced, high-flying Wall Street scene. Can you tell us a little bit more about Daniel?

He is very serious in the beginning and you are not sure if he has an angle or not. He is one of those too good to be true characters; he has a strong moral compass but is very awkward socially. He is an introverted guy who would rather spend his night reading a Jane Austen novel instead of being out on the town mixing it with Wall Street characters. He is old school.

Sounds all good, something has to go wrong; can you give us a sneak peek into Daniel’s life as a Wall Street maven?

Daniel gets emerged into the Wall Street world and is taken in by his boss Tommy who is trying to groom him into being a better salesman. That entails taking out clients, picking up girls, and embracing the whole lifestyle. Daniel is having a tough time adjusting. He meets Tommy’s girlfriend Beth who is played by Alexis Bledel and they have a connection. I would say it causes some problems.

Do you see any similarities between you and your character Daniel?

Not really. I think that Daniel is much more of a character than I have played in the past. I am a lot more outgoing, I am a social guy and Daniel is very uncomfortable in his own skin.

You guys shot the film on location in New York City; can you give us a look behind the scenes of what happens while on set?

We shot this over a year and half ago. I remember how smooth it was and what a pleasure it was to be at work every day. We were always on time, and it was easy. Everyone hung out together, it is such a cool young cast, and everyone was always going out and having fun. I usually do that when filming, I like to be on location, get to know the cast and everything.

However on this one, I felt that I had to remove myself from that. I didn’t want anyone to get too comfortable and didn’t want anyone to get too comfortable with me because I didn’t think it would work for the character. So I stayed uptown on the Upper West Side and didn’t really participate socially with everyone else.

That was the first time I had done that, so it wasn’t like a blast [laugh] for me ’cause I was in character the whole time. I remember it was a pleasure to work on the movie and Julio [DePietro] was a great director. For a first time director, I think he did a great job.

The name of the film is The Good Guy; would you consider yourself a good guy?

Yeah, I consider myself a good guy. I come from a good family and I try to be honest and treat people with respect. It is not really for me to say, anyone who says that they are a good guy probably isn’t or has an angle; you have to ask other people. Everyone thinks they are a good guy, s**t, I bet Hitler thought he was a good guy.

We heard some exciting news that in 2010, you were going to have a new album coming out, tell us more!

I was supposed to be in the studio in January. I have all these new songs but I broke my wrist, and everything got delayed. I don’t know when it will happen, but I am itching to get back into the studio once my wrist heals up.

Sorry to hear that, how did you break it?

I was mountain biking in Puerto Rico.

Message to the fans.

It is important now more than ever to support indie film makers because it is a dying bread and there are a lot of talented voices that need to be heard. This movie gives viewers a cool look at the Wall Street culture and the love life in New York City.

Usually every character I have played has an arch and what I found really interesting about this role was it didn’t. This one made me think a lot as a viewer because the character doesn’t change; however, as an audience member, your perspective changes. This movie is all about perception and how you feel about the characters in this world. I thought that was a really interesting journey to go on as an audience member.

(Source)

Bryan Greenberg Tries to be ‘The Good Guy’

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.”

(Source)

The Good Guy Interview

In The Good Guy Brian Greenberg literally plays the good guy. After taking a position at a financial firm on Wall Street, Daniel is forced to transition from a sweet and awkward bookworm into a curt selling powerhouse. His good guy image may not be appropriate for the financial industry, but it does catch the attention of a young woman named Beth. The problem is, she happens to be the girlfriend of Daniel’s mentor, Tommy.

It’s a good thing Greenberg has an appreciation for learning new things, because right after wrapping production on The Good Guy, he had to gear up for his brand new HBO show, How to Make It in America. Greenberg’s character isn’t very business savvy in this project either. He plays Cam, one half of an enterprise team trying to make it in the New York fashion scene.

His characters may not be at the top of their games on Wall Street or on the runway, but Greenberg is as an actor. And now, more than ever, he’s getting the chance to show us what he’s really capable of.

How’d you get involved in this project?
They approached me with the script and it was kind of an easy movie. They were shooting for five weeks in New York and I responded to the material and I really liked the producers, Belladonna, they did Transamerica and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I had a conversation with Julio, the director, and I decided this is a different character than something I’ve played in the past and why not? Let’s go for it! It was actually one of the smoothest movies I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve been on some big budget movies and people take their time, you don’t make the day. This was like, you don’t have time to mess around and you’ve just got to go for it. There were no hiccups in shooting this movie at all.

Did you know anything about trading when you took the role?
No, I didn’t know anything and that’s another reason I wanted to do it. Julio [DePietro] is very well versed in that world from his past and so he took us down to Wall Street and brought us on the trading floor and showed us these guys and how they interact and how they work the phones and what these sales mean. I read the script and was like, ‘I don’t understand the dialogue at all.’ [Laughs] I don’t even know what they’re talking about! I went to art school. That’s one of the cool things about being an actor; you get to take on all of these different hats and learn these different professions and play the character. I was really excited to be immersed in this world for a summer.

You got to ring the New York Stock Exchange bell recently, right?
Yeah! I just rang it on Monday and the Dow plummeted the worst in three months.

know the film was made quite a long time ago. Do you think moviegoers will still be willing to accept these upscale young professionals in the middle of a recession?
Even though [the move] would [take place] pre-recession, I think the timing couldn’t be better because it kind of examines the Wall Street culture. Tommy is this guy who’s greedy and wants more and that’s kind of the reason why we’re in a recession right now, because of guys like that. I think we kind of lucked out with that shot of him at the end looking at the New York Stock Exchange through his window and that scene hits home a lot harder now than it would before the market crashed. So I actually think the opposite.

What was your experience working with a first time writer/director?
I had a great time working with Julio, I’ve got to say. He’s obviously very talented because he wrote the script, so he knew what he wanted, but he had amazing poise to know how much he doesn’t know. He didn’t try to overcompensate. He didn’t have any ego in the process. If he didn’t know something about a lens or whatever, he trusted his DP or he trusted his actor about a moment. He really trusted me with Daniel and I took some risks with it and he went with me and he guided me along that process. It was a true pleasure. I’m really really impressed with what he did with his first movie.

Did he let you adlib at all?
Definitely, that’s the biggest part of my work. I always find it difficult when directors restrain me from that process. It’s not like I’m tying to rewrite. Obviously I liked the script, that’s why I did it. I like to keep things fresh, change it up and I always do it the way it’s written, but then I do a couple my own way. That’s just how I work. It keeps me on my toes and the other actors on their toes. He was cool enough to go with that and a lot of writer/directors are so worried about their words and their idea of how the movie should be instead of addressing the moment that’s really happening and sometimes the words don’t always match up to that. That’s why I like to do improv and he was cool enough to go with it.

How was it working with the rest of the cast? It seems like a fun young group, so I bet it was a blast.
You know what? I love everybody working on this, but this is the first time I sort of removed myself from everybody while shooting. I didn’t want anyone to feel too comfortable around me or me feel too comfortable around them because my character is so socially awkward. I stayed at a totally different hotel. I kind of just removed myself and I wanted it to be weird when I was shooting. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that. It sucked because I really liked everybody! [Laughs] I wanted to hang out, but I just thought that I needed a distance for my character to work.

Did you ever get frustrated with the character and wish you could just shake some sense into him?
He was a lot of fun to play because even the wardrobe – wearing the New Balance sneakers with the woven belt tucked in, with the Sidekick on the belt – yeah, you want to shake that guy and I think it lends a lot of comedic moments in the movie because Scott Porter’s character, Tommy, he’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m a mess. Daniel’s a mess!

Do you have better game with the girls than he does?
[Laughs] I don’t know! I mean, he does alright in the movie, but I don’t know. I’m not very good at breaking the ice but once someone introduces me I’m off and running. I think, Daniel, he had to meet the perfect girl in this film for it to work.

Any plans for Valentine’s Day?
My show comes out that night on HBO so I don’t know. Maybe I’ll still go out with some of the cast in LA and hang out.

How’s everything going with How To Make It In America? Are you getting good vibes?
Yeah! It’s crazy. Everyone’s so excited about it. I’ve never been a part of a project that’s got such good buzz. It’s really exciting to be around and it’s such a cool show to work on. We just had the premiere in New York, it was a lot of fun and just doing a lot of press and getting it out there. And people seem to be really connecting to it and it’s awesome to be a part of something like that.

And it’s an HBO show too, which is pretty prestigious in itself.
Yeah, they’re excited about it as well.

You’ve been on HBO before, right?
I did a show called Unscripted about five years ago, so it’s just great to be back on a network that I really really respect and it’s kind of the only network I really watch. I just love their programming, they take risks and it feels like a family. It feels like a home so it’s nice to come back home. And it provides you time to shoot cool indies like The Good Guy and other movies and to work on music, so it’s really a great situation.

Do you have anything on The Good Guy soundtrack?
I do not believe I do. I did play some shows while I was out there and the cast and director they all came down and supported, which was really cool.

You shoot the show in New York, right?
Well, we wrapped in December. The show is definitely all about New York City, so we shot it all on location. The last four or five jobs I’ve done have been in the city. I live in LA, but it’s great to keep working in New York. The Good Guy is a totally differently looking New York than How To Make It portrays. The Good Guy is all about Wall Street and that culture, which How To Make It touches on but How To Make It also is downtown, lower east side loft parties, cool clubs, Brooklyn and that world.

What do you have coming up other than the show? Any films?
Isn’t that enough? [Laughs] Isn’t this enough for one week? Actually after this I’m chilling. I don’t know. I’m going to hopefully get back in the studio and work on my second record and I’m looking at film projects and we’ll see what happens with a possible second season for How To Make It.

So when are you going to be in the midst of a superhero movie rumor?
Bryan Greenberg in a cape? Who knows? Anything’s possible.

You’re always the nice guy. Try going for a villain part.
I’d love to! That would be fun. It seems like that’s the only movie they’re making now. I’m excited that The Good Guy is getting distribution because indie movies they’re not – people ran out of money and they’re not making these movies anymore. It’s all superhero movies or real obvious tent pole studio films. I really hope people go out and support the indie filmmakers because it’s a dying breed and there’s a lot of cool voices out there that need to be heard.
(Source)

‘How to Make It in America’: 5 things to know about the show

HBO’s new series “How to Make It in America” comes from the same producing team as “Entourage” — but the thing you should know about it before anything else is that, aside from exploring the bond between guys and airing on HBO, it’s not a whole lot like “Entourage.”

Whereas Vinny Chase and his boys made it to the top and never really fell that far from it, “How to Make It” is about what it’s like to be on the bottom of the heap and looking for a way up. “It’s a street-level show,” is how creator Ian Edelman puts it. “It’s the beginning of a journey.”

The show stars Bryan Greenberg (“October Road”) and Victor Rasuk (“Stop-Loss,” “Raising Victor Vargas”) as Ben and Cam, long-time friends and would-be fashion moguls who have big ideas but less ability to execute them. The show follows their struggles to start a denim line — how they luck into the fabric is part of the story in Sunday’s (Feb. 14) premiere — and make their names in the business. Luis Guzman, Lake Bell, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi also star.

Here are four other things you should know going into the show.

Comedy with a side of drama. “How to Make It” has plenty of funny moments, but as with shows like “Hung,” “Nurse Jackie” and “United States of Tara,” it mixes in more dramatic material too (“HTMI” isn’t on those shows’ level yet, but its tone is similar). “It’s [about] a period in life where there’s a lot of hard work to be done and everything is — you’re figuring it out, there’s an existential window, and there are pressures, so some things hit harder than others,” Edelman says. “… It’s just kind of a realism and authenticity of this moment that we’re going for.”

Ensemble piece. Greenberg and Rasuk are definitely the center of the show, but the rest of the cast — particularly Guzman, who plays Cam’s ex-con uncle, and Bell, as Ben’s ex-girlfriend — have their own stories.

“Lake Bell has a much more significant role than what you see in the pilot,” Greenberg says. “The audience can follow what it’s like to be a single girl in her 20s trying to make it as an interior designer, and also dealing with the aftermath of a breakup and running into your ex at different functions, dating a new guy, and just questioning her career choice and life in the city. Eddie Kaye Thomas [as a high-school buddy of Ben's who's now a Wall Street big shot] is really funny. And Luis … we end up borrowing money from him, and there are consequences that come from borrowing money from him.”

Chemistry experiment. Despite that, though, the show wouldn’t work if Greenberg and Rasuk didn’t spark together, and they really do. Rasuk has infectious energy, and Cam serves as a great counterpoint to Greenberg’s more serious Ben. “When Bryan and Victor first met each other, we couldn’t have been happier,” Edelman says. “It was like instant chemistry. Victor is from the Lower East Side” — much of the show is set in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn — “and Bryan has spent so much time living there. … They were like instant friends — you could feel their back story. It was like a chemical thing; we couldn’t plan for it. We were fantastically lucky.”

Will they make it? Not right away (“It’s not called ‘Made It in America,’” Greenberg jokes). Edelman says the show is about “baby steps,” the little victories and setbacks on the road to achieving a dream. “We don’t want to slow the storytelling down too much [but we want to] find the joys along the way,” he adds. “But it’s a nonstop hustle and a nonstop grind. You take a step forward, and it’s three steps back. They’re kind of figuring it out.”
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“How to Make It in America” premieres at 10 p.m. ET Sunday on HBO.

(Source)

The American Dream comes to Brooklyn, yo

I recently sat down with the two stars of the new HBO series, How to Make it in America, for the easiest interview I’ve ever done, and the most fun. They’re super nice guys, incredibly energetic, and absolutely into what they do. I’m sure most actors are into what they do, but it’s actually rare to see this kind of enthusiasm for the gig.

Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk have a lot to say. And not just about their new HBO series, How to Make It. But about basketball, the 70s, Los Angeles, Twilight, growing up in the projects, acting, women, Hebrew school, music, you name it. Before How to Make It, Greenberg and Rasuk didn’t know each other. But they knew of each other. They’d played in the same basketball league out in LA. And Greenberg had seen Five Feet High and Rising, the Cannes and Sundance award-winning short that lead to Raising Victor Vargas and insta-cred for Rasuk. But now they’re friends. And it’s not bullshit, some angle cooked up by the marketing folks to get butts in seats. That chemistry they have in the show? It’s real. They enter the room animated, mid-conversation, tossing details into each other’s stories. They love stories, and as two young actors who’ve been in the business for years, they’ve got a lot of them to tell.

Like how Rasuk landed that short film. He was a 13 year old kid from the pj’s (projects he later brought Greenberg into, but that’s another story). Some NYU students were shooting in Tompkins Square Park. Rasuk was hanging around, but he was a New York kid. New York kids don’t stand back. “I was like, ‘Hey, can I be in your movie?’” That wasn’t Five Feet, but the next one was. Two years later there was Vargas and the Spirit Award nomination. Then Lords of Dogtown, Stop-Loss, hanging with Benicio on Che. But that’s another story too.

And like the time George Clooney gave Greenberg a talking-to. It was on Unscripted, and Greenberg had just nailed his big scene with Frank Langella. “You know, ‘You don’t know me! You’re my acting teacher, not my therapist!’ And at the end of the day, I was like, ‘I fucking killed that!’”

“No you didn’t, son!” Rasuk says. Their hands smack in the air.

“In my mind,” Greenberg says. “And the next day George brought me into his office and was like, ‘Come here.’ I was like, ‘What’s up?’” Greenberg shows how he sauntered up to Clooney, confident, cocky. Rasuk laughs. He’s loving this story. “And George said, ‘I don’t ever want to see you act. The minute I see you act, it’s over.’” Rusak sits back, eyes wide. Greenberg says, “I was like, ‘Noted. Got it.’ The best acting advice I ever got.”

“That’s kinda gangster,” says Rasuk.

Despite its name, How to Make It is not a primer for our times. Though it’s the latest show to call NYC home, it’s setting is the New New York, eight years after 9-11 but with fresh Wall Street wounds and a creeping feeling that the famous dream we all cling to, along with our babies and guns, has become a nightmare. Greenberg and Rasuk play Ben and Cam, two friends struggling to make something happen, on their own terms, in the outer boroughs. Ben’s a struggling artist and designer who works at Barney’s by day, and Cam’s an exuberant hustler who’ll chase a dream all the way to the Bronx if he has to, even on his bike. “My character,” Rasuk says, “in a lot of ways is a composite of guys I grew up with or came across in New York City.”

And in a lot of ways, Greenberg’s character symbolizes Manhattan. “Ben can go into the projects [before shooting, Rasuk took Greenberg to the LES pj's where he grew up], he can go to the Wall Street guys, he can be in the art scene, he can blend into the nightlife with the skateboarders and promoters, he can go to the upper east side with his Jewish folks. He embodies all of it. And he brings it all together.” The actor was raised in the Midwest and went to NYU but lives now, like Rasuk, where the sun never stops shining. “I don’t love LA,” he says, “but I love working.” Even though Rasuk hasn’t looked back since Victor Vargas, he feels the same way. It’s about the work. When Greenberg says, “It’s just being in the moment and loving what you do,” Rasuk says, “Just like How to Make It.”

“Yeah, like How to Make It,” Greenberg echoes. “We’re trying to capture the vibe of people on the grind, not being satisfied with their place in life, doing whatever it takes to get ahead. The beauty is we don’t really know what we’re doing. We just have a dream.”

A dream that finds them, in the pilot, borrowing three grand off a drug dealer to buy a roll of primo Japanese denim off the back of a truck. The jeans they’ll make will sell for hundreds a pop. But, “We might launch into something else too,” Rasuk says, almost in character, loving the mystery of what’s to come with the first season of a show that everybody’s excited about. They grin, smack hands, and keep talking.

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HTMIIA Review: The Dream, Without the Drive

Entourage written backward doesn’t quite spell garmento, but that is the gist of “How to Make It in America,” a new series on HBO beginning Sunday that comes from the producers of “Entourage.” Here they have reversed the premise to look at guys from the neighborhood who haven’t left the neighborhood.
Instead of exploiting instant fame and wealth in Hollywood, these New York slackers are dodging creditors and cops, hoping for a break in the garment business, or at least enough cash to pay the rent.

Failure isn’t as much fun as success, probably because there is so much more of it. Dreams aren’t the same as drive, and self-pity is less attractive than hard work. Accordingly, it takes a while to care about Ben (Bryan Greenberg), a mopey Fashion Institute of Technology dropout who folds jeans at Barneys and moons over his ex-girlfriend, Rachel (Lake Bell). His best friend, Cam (Victor Rasuk), has more energy, but he wastes it on lame projects like selling designer skateboards and bootleg leather goods.

The two pals have some tenuous fashion and art-scene connections, mostly rich girls with downtown lofts. They have ambition, sort of, but first they have to repay a loan from Cam’s cousin, Rene (Luis Guzman), an ex-con who views physical harm as collateral.

Appealingly, the heroes inhabit a more multicultural milieu than the one on “Entourage.” But the grittier, graffiti-and-bodega backdrop is not necessarily as winning as palm trees and swimming pools. “Entourage” was a Cinderella story for guys that provided a new and amusingly wry look at show business — and the culture of young stars and their posses — through the eyes of losers from Queens who luck out.

Twenty-somethings trying to make it, or depressed about not making it, is a more familiar and well-explored subject, from “Reality Bites” to “Clerks.” Even “Bored to Death,” a recent HBO series about Brooklyn slackers, got bored with ennui and put its dope-smoking hero to work as a private detective.

“How to Make It in America” picks up steam as its heroes pick themselves up by their sneaker laces and try to start their own business, in this case a line of retro 1970s designer jeans. Theirs is not a Horatio Alger or even a Ralph Lifshitz to Ralph Lauren business model; this is a recession-era, empire-in-decline morality tale. They can turn a quick deal — Cam coaxes Ben into helping him move a shipment of leather coats bought off the back of a truck. But persistent effort isn’t worth the trouble.

Attitude and connections are the best way to make it in America, a point slyly reinforced with visual cues, like a party in a cool Lower East Side apartment on Hester Street, a location that was once a symbol of the immigrant work ethic. At a restaurant a friend introduces Ben and Cam to the designer John Varvatos, and over drinks they wheedle a consultation. Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein were Bronx kids who hustled to apprentice to designers and manufacturers; Ben and Cam hustle to avoid being apprentices.

“Everybody has ideas, but nobody wants to put in the work,” the rich father of a friend tells Cam after Cam tries to sell him on a new venture that he describes as “Cold Stone Creamery, but for doughnuts.”

The series has great music (the theme song is Aloe Blacc’s “I Need a Dollar”) and there are some snarky asides about hipster New York. A female friend tries to get Ben interested in a new girl, Jane, saying, “Oh, she’s cute, she has short hair and she writes for Nylon, and she will definitely sleep with you.”

The series takes off when secondary characters fill in the blank spots. Mr. Guzman is poker-faced and quite funny as a small-time mobster in a Dominican neighborhood who buys into a franchise for an energy drink, Rasta Monsta. Ben finds a potential backer when he runs into a high school classmate, David (Eddie Kaye Thomas), a nerd who has reaped a hedge-fund fortune. David, who looks a little like the goofy heir played by Tommy Noonan in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” is worth millions, but he can’t get past the bouncer at a hot downtown club, Avenue. Ben, who plays basketball with the bouncer, can, and that is a quid pro quo he can take to the bank.

Rachel dumped Ben, but she still isn’t completely over him, even though she has a handsome new boyfriend, Darren (Jason Pendergraft), a hotelier, and a promising job with an interior designer. Her boss, Edie (Martha Plimpton), perks Rachel up when Rachel returns morose and insecure from a lunch with a college friend who is combating the spread of AIDS in Africa.

“Any ambitious do-gooder with airfare can feel like they are making a difference in Africa,” Edie says airily, waving a joint. “It’s Africa.” She assures her protégée that the true heroes are the ones helping hard-working New Yorkers make the most out of tiny apartments. “I still want you to go to Africa and help out,” she says. “Just do it on your Christmas break.”

When Ben shakes his hangdog complacency and gives the jeans project his full attention, “How to Make It in America” finds its stride — not the “Entourage” strut but a garment-district shuffle.

Any movement is better than idleness. Hard work may not pay off anymore in real life, but it is still the stuff of fiction.

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Bryan Greenberg Talks Playing ‘The Most Awkward Version Of Myself’ & His Return To HBO

Bryan Greenberg may play a cool character in HBO’s new series “How To Make It In America,” but for the indie film “The Good Guy,” he had to take a different tack.

“I just tried to play the most awkward version of myself,” he told AccessHollywood.com of his role as Wall Street newcomer Daniel in the film, due on February 19. “I think Daniel just wasn’t blessed with the social talents.”

In one scene, he approaches two women in a bar – only to wind up asking for a napkin instead of their numbers, a scene that he admitted was more true to life.

“I’m pretty good with talking to girls if I have an introduction, but I’m the worst at trying to go pick up a girl,” the former “October Road” and “One Tree Hill” star said. “I’m really bad at breaking the ice. It’s awkward! It’s this weird position that the male species is forced into from society. Girls have it [hard] in a lot of ways… they have to bear children… but guys usually have the responsibility of breaking the ice.”

To step into the role, Bryan said he went a little method.

“When I was shooting the film, I didn’t choose to stay downtown with the rest of the cast, I stayed uptown. I just didn’t want anyone to stay too comfortable around me, or vice versa,” he said. “It was new for me. I’m not a method actor [but] I [do] try to live in the character’s world a little bit.”

That character, he added, is “a very extreme contrast from the character I’m playing in ‘How To Make It In America’” – his new HBO comedy, where he plays Ben Epstein, a man trying to make it in New York’s fashion scene.

“It’s so good to be back” with HBO, Bryan said. “I did ‘Unscripted’ a couple years ago [with them]. They let you take risks.”

With all of his new work, fans of his “One Tree Hill” days may be wondering when the sometime-musician will be showing off his singer-songwriter skills once more.

“I’ve got a bunch of new songs,” Bryan said. “[But] I broke my wrist.”

When his cast comes off, he said, he’ll be heading for the studio – and looking forward to debuting his mellow musical side.

“I’m definitely a singer-songwriter,” he said. “I’m somewhere in the vein between Elliott Smith and Jack Johnson.”

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Check out Bryan’s top 5 spots in New York City

Bryan recently shared his top 5 spots in New York City with Complex Magazine Check out this link so you can see the photos too