Bryan Greenberg & Victor Rasuk Revisit ‘How To Make It In America’ And Highlight The Hustle On New Podcast—Deadline Q&A
Fourteen years following the premiere of HBO’s How to Make It In America stars Bryan Greenberg and Victor Rasuk have reteamed on a podcast.
“We (Almost) Made It” focuses on all things hustle and features interviews with people working hard and making moves—AND the guys will share memories from the show and their reactions to their current rewatch. Guest on released episodes include How To Make It In America creator Ian Edelman and their co-star Luis Guzman, which are available now via your favorite podcast network.
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While the series was short-lived—it ran for two seasons on HBO before it was prematurely canceled—both Greenberg and Rasuk are asked repeatedly about putting the gang back together. “The point of this podcast series is not to campaign for that,” they told Deadline. However, if something was offered, they would be down to revisit this universe in a New York minute.
How To Make It In America follows friends Ben Epstein (Greenberg) and Cam Calderon (Rasuk), who hustle on the streets of the Big Apple in search of the American dream. They focused on climbing the ladder in the highly competitive fashion scene with a little help from Cam’s enterprising cousin Rene (Guzman) and their well-connected friend Domingo (Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi).
The drama also starred Lake Bell, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Margarita Levieva, Martha Plimpton and Joe Pantaliono, to name a few.
When the series ended, it broke many hearts including that of the cast and crew who passionately believed in the story they were telling. It would take many of them years to get over it, like Greenberg (discussed below).
Greenberg and Rasuk spoke to Deadline about their new collaboration, how How To Make It In America will be part of the series and more.
DEADLINE: How did the idea for the podcast come about?
BRYAN GREENBERG: It was during the actor strike. Vic and I were like, “What are we gonna do? We gotta do something.” But also, and I talk about this in the first podcast, I had such a mental block against the show because I was so sad after it went away. But now, I’m in a better place. I’m a different person now and I am ready to appreciate the show for what it is. I thought it was cool for the fans too. There are so many fans who still love it so much. It spoke to us in a way that no other show had and it resonated with us on a deep level, more than any project I’ve ever been a part of. I feel like everybody, myself included, got robbed. So we felt like we owed the fans a little visit down memory lane and to pay tribute to it. People always ask me, “Hey, what happened to that show?” We almost named our podcast that. [Laughs]
VICTOR RASUK: Yeah, Bryan and I, over the years, have gotten approached by people who loved the show. After 12 years of that, we thought this podcast would be a good way for us to find closure. But also, it’s a nice way to give something to the fans and tell them things about the show they may not know. The idea for the podcast goes way beyond How to Make It In America because we only made 16 episodes. What Bryan and I want to do with the podcast is— especially right now with people hustlin’ hard— we want to share stories of people we admire and sometimes people you may not know about yet. We want to highlight their hustle and hopefully, it will inspire others. We will speak to people inside and outside of our industry.
DEADLINE: It’s important to highlight actors as well because fans watch people like you two and imagine you go from big job to big job, rich and with no problems. So speaking on something like how deeply, Bryan, you were affected by the show’s cancellation is also valid and important.
BG: Yeah, I didn’t realize the reaction to (the first podcast episode) would be kind of crazy; within the fan base but also the actor community. I guess people don’t talk about it and I never really realized that. I figured, what’s the point of not being real about what went down and why it took so long for us to talk about this? It was all me in my head and my issues. Somebody even responded on Twitter to me saying, “Oh man, I feel bad asking Bryan for season three when he was struggling with what was going on mentally.” I wrote back, “I appreciate the love but those are my issues to deal with and not yours.” They shouldn’t feel guilty asking me about the show.
And this is not just something that happens to actors, we all have moments when our dreams get crushed. I’m very interested in talking to people about that on the podcast. We touched on a lot of these things on the show that resonated with people like ambition and drive and what it means. What does hustle and grind mean? Those are universal themes that we want to explore which are much bigger than the show.
DEADLINE: After the show ended, you two remained friends and now you’re collaborating again. What’s that experience been like?
VR: This has been a fun way for us to kick since we’re just so busy with our families and our careers. We’re both in such a good place emotionally, that now we can talk about How To Make It In America and have fun with it. We will also have some of our cast members coming on like Kid Cudi and Lake Bell and others who Bryan and I agree have great hustlin’ stories that are big names in the industry. Look, we have no idea how long this [podcast] is going to last because we really just went into it with an idea.
DEADLINE: What’s the format for the show and how does it differ when you have guests connected to How To Make It In America?
BG: We’re using How To Make It as a jumping-off point but we also want to hear how they got their start and how they chased their dreams. Like with Luis, I wanted to know how he got into the business and what his grind was like. His real passion is community service and acting was his side hustle. I found that so interesting. Everyone we have on has found some sort of success. Victor and I will also recap the show sporadically with specific episodes we’ve picked. To be honest, we’re just trying different things out and seeing what resonates. We’re actors, not podcasters, so this is all coming together organically. We’re just having fun which gives us a lot of freedom. We have no agenda. I think good art comes from that.
DEADLINE: Do you have any dream interviewees? You never know who is reading this.
BG: I’d like to talk to Ronnie Fieg who does Kith, because I feel like that’s who Ben Epstein probably became.
VR: I’d love to have Michelle Obama on the show.
BG: You know her husband Barack Obama used to love How To Make It In America.
DEADLINE: And they’re producing now under the Higher Ground production banner so it makes sense.
BG: He can talk about how to make it in America great again.
DEADLINE: How is your rewatch of the show going?
BG: This is the craziest part for me because I honestly put it away and didn’t think about it or watch it. So all these years later, I’m the audience, and I’m watching it like a fan which has been so cool. While watching, I texted Victor, “Man, we created something really timeless and special. I can’t believe we did the show. This is so crazy. This show was so good.”
DEADLINE: What are your thoughts on your performances?
BG: I feel like I was very immersed in that character. After I directed myself in a movie, I’m pretty good now at objectively watching myself and seeing what I did well and what I did not. I can compartmentalize it. Objectively, I’m happy with that performance; I feel like I was really in it and we were so true to that world, all of us. Everybody on the show was just perfectly cast. It was the perfect synergy: where we were in our lives at that moment in that space in New York. I think that’s why it worked.
VR: The feelings that are coming up for me are, “I can’t believe how much I forgot about this.” So watching it all over again with fresh eyes confirms to me like Bryan was saying, this was a f***ing good show. It was also groundbreaking in a lot of ways. When you’re in it, you don’t realize how groundbreaking anything is, right? You hope that things are going to work, but 12 years later, it’s still so relevant today.
DEADLINE: Is there a world in which this show could come back for like a reunion special? Is this a show with a story that could be told again?
VR: Hell yeah, we could do it again!
BG: Everyone we’ve talked to on the show, we all loved our experience and would do it again in a heartbeat. But we’re not by any means petitioning for that. We appreciate the time we had and the show we created. If it does have a second life, I think we’d all be there for that. But this is not our goal with the podcast. We’re here to appreciate what we did and explore the themes of that show in the current day.
VR: This podcast was not created to bring this show back. We are very realistic about that. But in saying that, if the show were to come back in some a utopian world, it’d still be relevant. It’s just crazy that I didn’t realize that until rewatching these episodes right now.
DEADLINE: You are both busy actors, how will you balance your gigs and making the podcast?
BG: We’re dropping episodes weekly so right now, we’re banking episodes because we are busy.
VR: The producers told us that we will drop episodes weekly until the middle of July. There’s a lot more to come.
This story has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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