Jonathan Silverman isn't looking for a companion, but he can still relate to the premise of his new series, The Single Guy.
"Even though I've been dating a girl for over a year now, I'm still being fixed up," says Silverman, whose biggest role to date was in the movie "Weekend at Bernie's." "It's a disease, really."
But one affliction this new sitcom won't be saddled with is a tough time slot. Sitting between Friends and Seinfeld in the NBC Thursday lineup, The Single Guy looks like a guaranteed hit in what its star calls "the God slot."
Silverman plays Johnny Eliot, a New York novelist who's the last single person in a close circle of married friends. As well as the younger pals, the series also costars screen veteran Ernest Borgnine as Johnny's jovial doorman, Manny. Silverman notes that the five-times-married Borgnine "has a lot of wisdom to share regarding marriages - he's done it so many times."
Silverman and executive producer Brad Hall (the former Saturday Night Live regular who's married to Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus) insist the show won't be just a series of blind dates. "We're not going to fix him up every week," says Hall. Silverman agrees. "The show will focus on the pains of being single, as well as the pleasures," he says. "We're on a wonderful evening full of smart comedies, and we would like to be one, too."
The lanky Los Angeles native nearly wound up on one of those smart comedies last season. Instead, Silverman's friend David Schwimmer eventually won the role on Friends. Pals since they were 12 or 13, Silverman says Schwimmer is "just blown away by the success and the popularity that he's achieved." Now Silverman is bracing himself for his own brush with fame.
"For 10 years, I've made a handsome living, yet I've been able to keep my anonymity. Now I've been able to study what's happened to Schwim in the last nine, 10 months, so that's been a lesson unto itself."
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