Profile : The Most Eligible Guy : WITH A GOLDEN TIME SLOT, JONATHAN SILVERMAN’S NEW SITCOM COULD END UP CHANGING THE ACTOR’S LIFE

Jonathan Silverman is keenly aware of the pros and cons of starring in a television series.

Though the 29-year-old actor has appeared in more than 18 movies (including both “Weekend at Bernie’s” comedies) and headlined on Broadway in Neil Simon’s Tony Award-winning “Broadway Bound,” he isn’t a household name or face.

But that’s all about to change.

Silverman is starring in the new NBC comedy “The Single Guy,” in which he plays--who else?--a single guy. Silverman’s Jonathan is a witty, articulate writer looking for his perfect soul mate. And his married friends are bound and determined to help him find one. (This is the same Silverman who played a married man when he was 18 on the NBC series “Gimme a Break.”)

The series, which also stars Ernest Borgnine, Joey Slotnick, Ming-Na Wen, Jessica Hecht and Mark Moses, has a cushy time slot, sandwiched between the Peacock Network’s “Must See TV” hits “Friends” and “Seinfeld.”

“I think the toughest part about doing TV is the lack of anonymity that I imagine is going to happen,” says Silverman, during a break from the “Single Guy” rehearsals. “I have been fortunate in the sense that in my 10 or 11 years of doing this, I have made a rather handsome living and haven’t had to really pay the price in terms of having my privacy stripped away. I can go to a ballgame and not be bothered.”

But he noticed people noticing him last month when NBC began airing “Single Guy” promos. “It’s overwhelming,” says Silverman, a real-life single guy who is unfailingly polite and charming. “More people saw those than the 18 or 19 movies I have done.”

Still, he says, doing a sitcom allows him to have a life. “You don’t have to wake up at 4 in the morning and you don’t have to go off to faraway lands to work,” he says with a smile. “If you make dinner plans at 8 o’clock you might be able to keep them.”

But the biggest plus about doing “The Single Guy” is that Silverman’s profile has risen in the Hollywood community “based on the industry buzz and the fact the show has been given this prime slot. I have been offered all of these wonderful movies, these big kind of studio films during my hiatus if we make it that far. These movies I probably couldn’t even get a meeting for two or three months ago.”

In fact, boosting his film career was one of the main reasons he decided to do “The Single Guy.” The enormous success of such series as “ER” and “Friends” has catapulted a lot of its stars into high-profile movies.

“Every pilot season I would be offered something,” he says. “So much has changed in the industry in the past decade in terms of an actor’s status. If an actor did a TV show 10 years ago, he would remain on television. Nowadays, it only helps to have a television career, which then enhances your movie role opportunities.”

It was his role as a baseball player in the 1994 Castle Rock feature “Little Big League” that led to “The Single Guy.”

“Based on my performance in the movie, they offered me an overall deal,” Silverman says. “I was thrilled they offered me anything. The reason I took the movie in the first place, because it was the smallest role I have had, was to become a member of the Castle Rock family. They gave me an overall deal and basically it involved helping to create and eventually star in a television show. And should the show not work, the deal would go to a movie deal. So it was a no-lose situation.”

It so happened that executive producer/creator Brad Hall, who is married to “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, was under contract to Castle Rock and NBC Productions. Silverman recalled reading a pilot a few years before by Hall called “The Single Life.”

“I had known Brad anyway and when they brought us together in this meeting I said, ‘Brad, a few years ago you wrote this script. Could you get it out of mothballs and update it a bit because it has got the potential of being something quite fun and brilliant.”’

Besides starring in “The Single Guy,” Silverman is also “one of the many owners of the show. I have the title of program consultant. I am not sure what that means, but I am consulting. Needless to say, I was involved in the casting procedures. We have a wonderful cast.”

Before “The Single Guy” was picked up for the fall season, Silverman tested the sitcom waters by making a guest appearance on the final episode of “Friends” as the doctor who delivers Ross’ baby. “[NBC] thought it would be a good idea,” he says. “I hadn’t done a sitcom in about 10 or 11 years. They thought it would be a nice opportunity to get back into it. Instead of screwing up my own show, I would just have a few lines on theirs. It turned out fine.”

In last week’s premiere of “The Single Guy,” Jonathan’s married friends set him up with a blind date from hell. Silverman says, though, the series won’t be a blind date or fix-up-of-the week type show.

“I am hoping from what I have been reading in future episodes, the show will tackle other subjects,” Silverman says. “The show is called ‘The Single Guy’ and I play him, but everyone else on the show is married, so it won’t always focus on being single and meeting a new girl. It will also look at the lifestyle of single people as compared to married people.”

Silverman pauses and smiles. “But there will be plenty of girls. I am looking forward to that.”

“The Single Guy” airs Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.