411mania Inteviews: Bryan Greenberg
Posted by Al Norton on 04.03.2010
411's Al Norton sits down for an exclusive interview with Bryan Greenberg, star of HBO's How To Make It In America.
Bryan Greenberg has been a steady TV presence since 2003, with three seasons on One Tree Hill followed by lead roles in Unscripted and October Road. He's also appeared on the big screen in Prime, Noble Son, Bride Wars, and The Good Guy. Currently he stars in HBO's How to Make It in American, which airs its season finale Sunday at 10 pm.
Al Norton: Are you aware that you have the coolest theme song on TV right now?
Bryan Greenberg: I know. "I need a dollar, a dollar, a dollar is what I need (singing)." I heard it a couple of weeks before we premiered. They were playing around with a bunch of different songs and I went into the studio to check it out and I was like, "oh my God." I remember thinking that whoever this guy was – and it turned out to be Aloe Blacc – he just had his career made.
It's so good, and the way they do the credits, with the pictures and the slow mo, it sucks you in right away.
Al Norton: How did the show come to you?
Bryan Greenberg: I knew the creator socially, I play basketball with Ian Edelman. I didn't even know he was a writer, we just connected on the court; we were undefeated when we played together and he told me he liked my work in Prime. I thought he was a nice guy plus we had a friend in common. A couple of months later I was reading the trades and saw "Ian Edelman has a pilot with HBO" and I thought, "I need to read this article."
I called my agents and read the script and really responded to the New York world he had written in the show because it was very much like the New York that I knew and lived in. I saw down with Julian Farino, Steve Levinson, and Rob Weiss and we talked about where the show was going and what they wanted to do. They were trying to create a movement for this generation, to really show what it's like for some people right now, with the economy being what it is, and I just got it.
I did a chemistry read with Victor Rasuk, who plays Cam, and we hit it off right away, and now we're good.
Al Norton: Do you know guys like Ben and Cam?
Bryan Greenberg: Oh, totally. I know a bunch of guys like this. New York is a very expensive city and people end up doing a lot of different things to pursue their dreams. I know a lot of artists, DJ's who are also designing bags and also working in sound studio, doing anything they can to get by.
I wasn't as familiar with the clothing world as much. I'm aware of it peripherally, through the film industry, but I talked to a lot of people. I talked with people from Mark Ecko's company when I was researching the role. It's really interesting. He told me, "my jeans are no different than anyone else's. It's the hustle that convinces you to buy them."
Al Norton: How much do you think filming everything on location in New York adds to the show?
Bryan Greenberg: Oh man. I feel like New York is a character in the show. You couldn't make this show anywhere else. We do three moves a day, on location, and we've shot in every borough in New York. It's great. We've hit the hot spots. When we filmed at the club all my friends wanted me to visit with them because they were there already, because that's where all the girls were.
There's a lot of walking and talking. Those aren't extras a lot of the time; those are real New Yorkers out on the street. We shoot with long lenses so people can't tell we're doing a TV show. The authenticity is a huge part of the show. A lot of times we'll be doing a scene and a real person will come up and ask us how much the leather jackets are and we'll say, "listen, we're doing a TV show right now. You have to keep moving. (laughing)"
Al Norton: One of the first episodes you two were sitting in the window of a pizza place and I thought there is no way filming that on a sound stage would work.
Bryan Greenberg: Totally real. I eat at that pizza place. I know these places. We're shooting a lot in my old neighborhood in Alphabet City. This is not one of those New York shows shot on a back lot in LA. It's also not a cleaned up version of New York. This is New York down and dirty, where people are honking and yelling and bumping into you. You can smell it, taste it, feel it.
Al Norton: Is Luis Guzman as cool as one would think?
Bryan Greenberg: Cooler. He's an amazing guy. We talk once a week; we have about a one hour conversation on the phone every week. He calls and we just bullshit (laughing). He lives on a farm in Vermont, which you'd never think. He's just living his life.
He's a great actor, one of those guys that you can't not like. If you do, there's something wrong with you. Everyone loves him and he has the ability to make anything he says funny.
Al Norton: You're first big TV role was on One Tree Hill and since there are some rumors this will be the last season, I was wondering what you'd say if Mark Schwahn called to ask you to come back for a series finale.
Bryan Greenberg: I haven't heard anything about it. I am very thankful for the time I had on the show but for me it was a long time ago. I am totally thankful for the experience and the fans it brought me but my whole thing is to keep moving forward and keep challenging myself, keep changing it up.
Al Norton: Do you think Unscripted (Greenberg's one season pseudo-reality show on HBO) was ahead of its time?
Bryan Greenberg: Definitely. The show was one of the coolest things I've ever worked on. Even now people who watch the show don't know how to take it. It was before shows like The Hills or these hybrid reality-scripted shows ever happened. Nobody knew what to make of it; was it real, was it not real? The truth of it is that it was all plotted out and then completely improved. Everything was storylined, we used some real sets and some fake sets. We used our real names, which made it confusing, but we were all playing characters; I was a dumber, more naïve version of myself, constantly falling upwards.
We created storylines around our work; I had a guest spot on One Tree Hill so we made that a part of it. Or they would book me on Life With Bonnie, or put me on ER as an extra.
Al Norton: I think there was an episode where you did an episode of either Smallville or Supernatural and then got upset when you got edited out.
Bryan Greenberg: Right, and I never did an episode of Supernatural. That's all (George) Clooney and (Steven) Soderberg (creators and executive producers of Unscripted). They were ahead of their time with the show, for sure.
Al Norton: Do you think having to do that level of improve made you a better actor?
Bryan Greenberg: 100%. I learned so much working with George, who is a great director and actor. To be around him and get advice from one of the greatest, to work with Frank Langella…It was also just being in the fire. I was shooting Prime and Unscripted at the same time, literally at the same time. I would be shooting a scene for Prime, they'd yell cut, and then there would be another mike and I'd be shooting a scene for Unscripted where I was pretending I was still drunk from the night before. I was shooting two high profile projects with incredible people at the same time; it was an intense high point of my career.
Al Norton: That must be pretty heady, to go from working with on a movie Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman to your starring role in a TV series with Clooney and Soderberg.
Bryan Greenberg: And Clooney was on the set of Prime, too. I was juggling five balls at once. It was a lot to deal with. It didn't really hit me until about a year later and I was just like, "holy shit, I can't believe I did that (laughing)." It was great.
Al Norton: You've been at this for some time now, so how do you learn how to not be too effected by reviews, good or bad?
Bryan Greenberg: That's a good question. You just really embrace the good ones and the bad ones you just say, "they're idiots, they don't know what they're talking about (laughing?" Not really. I know everyone says they don't read reviews but I think it's fascinating to see what people think about it. Ultimately critics are paid to critique, so they're going to be a lot of haters out there who pull everything apart. Look at a show like Seinfeld, which was trashed and had awful ratings at first and then becomes one of the greatest shows in history.
There's too much emphasis put on reviews; people write shows off off of 26 minutes of filming, and that's not what TV is. TV grows over seasons. It's not a movie; you set things up and see where they go. That's the beauty of working in television, it changes.
The greatest thing to do right now is go on Twitter; people will tell you what they think of your show. They're not paid critics, they're not jaded, they're real people.
Al Norton: Is it hard for you to balance your acting with your music? (Greenberg has an album of original material and has toured with Gavin Degraw).
Bryan Greenberg: Sometimes. I've had to cancel tours because of scheduling. The hardest part is that music is planned out months in advance and film and TV happen very quickly. Things happen spur of the moment more acting and it's hard to plan your year.
Music is great as a balance. You are going from someone else's project where you are saying their words and then going off and writing and performing music that is your own personal form of expression. I need both to make each one feel like a creative outlet and not like a job.
Don't miss the season finale of How To Make It In America, Sunday at 10 pm on HBO
