SILVERMAN & HIS BROADWAY ‘HOBBY’

Twenty-one-year-old Jonathan Silverman may not be a household name yet. But add him to the recent crop of young actors who have proved that what once took years of experience and exposure to develop can happen almost overnight.

Just three years ago, Silverman was performing in plays at Beverly Hills High School “because drama was an elective that seemed like an easy A.” Now, he is a regular in theater circles in New York, starring on Broadway in Neil Simon’s latest, long-running comedy, “Broadway Bound.” During the same period he has been gaining exposure on movie screens around the country, starring in an earlier Simon comedy, “Brighton Beach Memoirs.”

In the play and the film, Silverman plays Eugene Jerome, the protagonist at the heart of Simon’s autobiographical trilogy--”Biloxi Blues” is the third--about a middle-class, Jewish family living in New York during the 1940s and 50s.

“It is frightening at my age to have so much happen in so short a time,” Silverman said. “I’m grateful I haven’t had to struggle . . . but I’m young, inexperienced, and I have a lot to learn. . . . I don’t want to make major mistakes in this profession I’ve fallen into.”

Silverman was 17 and playing the role of Puck in a Beverly Hills High production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when a Los Angeles agent spotted him and asked him to audition for the role of Eugene in the Broadway production of “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” which Matthew Broderick was about to leave. At that point, Silverman had not even seen a Broadway play. “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” with Broderick in the lead, became his first.

He quickly identified with Eugene and his tightly knit, Jewish family.

“The idea of just meeting Neil Simon was exciting, something to tell my grandchildren about,” Silverman said. “And as the audition process went on, I started to consider the real possibility (of getting the part). But I still was thinking of acting as an extended hobby.”

Silverman said that within six days of his first audition, he was offered the role and was given two weeks to decide whether to accept. With the encouragement and support of his parents, he chose to move to New York.

When he actually found himself in a Broadway show, he said, he thought, “Now, this is a career.”

After about a year of playing Eugene on Broadway and in a national tour that made a stop at the Shubert in Los Angeles, Silverman was asked to portray the character in the film version of “Brighton Beach” and in the unfolding stage production of “Broadway Bound.” In the interim, he was asked to step in a second time to replace Broderick in “Biloxi Blues” on Broadway.

Silverman said his various incarnations as Eugene were occasionally confusing: At one point he was spending his days finishing the film version of “Brighton Beach Memoirs” as a 15-year-old Eugene and rehearsing for “Broadway Bound” as a 23-year-old, then heading to the theater at night to settle in at 19--his actual age at the time--for performances of “Biloxi Blues.”

Silverman left no doubt that the screen and stage roles he originated mean the most to him.

“A lot of what Matthew had done was in the first two (stage performances), because he originated the role,” Silverman said. “But in the film, even though I was reading the same lines, I was able to bring a lot more of myself to the role. I had to learn how to tone down and minimize everything, especially facial expressions I didn’t even know I had before, to make it more believable.

“And with ‘Broadway Bound,’ I was the only one ever to speak the lines. It’s my baby; I’ve given birth to it.”

Silverman, who is also taking courses at USC and New York University, has observed himself growing--physically and emotionally--in the character of Eugene. Since taking on his first role in “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” Silverman has grown from 5 foot 4 to 6 feet, and his voice has changed.

“I’m now a young man,” he said.

Silverman said that his three-year “on-the-job training” with Simon and Gene Saks, who directed all three plays and the movie, has provided him with “$1-million worth of acting lessons” and an education about show business.

“I’ve already met evil, corrupt people in this business, and I never thought I’d have to mature so quickly to relate to so many people my parents’ age,” he said. “But I’m trying to maintain my own life the way I was brought up.”

If success is spoiling him, Silverman isn’t allowing it to show.

“It’s definitely helped my social life, making it easier to ask girls out,” he said, laughing. “It would probably be easy to take on a snotty, egotistical attitude, but I think if I haven’t changed by now, I probably never will.”