Read on for the entire JVibe Ben Feldman interview that we simply couldn't fit in the recent January/February print issue. It's all here for you to see at JVibe.com.

Ben Feldman was cute and artsy as Hilary Duff's love interest in the movie “The Perfect Man,” but the comedic young actor has an impressive list of roles under his belt, including his Jewish characters in “When Do We Eat?” and “Living With Fran.”

Born and raised on the east coast, his acting skills were honed in the theatre, and he got his big break doing a stint in “The Graduate” on Broadway, alongside Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. He soon made his way out to Hollywood, and learned pretty quickly how tough the business can be—the show he was cast to star in was quickly cancelled. But his good nature and quick wit caught the interest of many other producers, and the roles have continued to pile in.

When Feldman spoke to JVibe, he had recently wrapped filming Parental Guidance Suggested.

Okay, so here's this movie, “Parental Guidance Suggested,” with Frankie Muniz, Matthew Lillard, and Jamie Kennedy. It sounds pretty funny. What's it about and what is your role in it?

It's funny in sort of a crazy, raunchy way. The guys who wrote it, wrote “Not Another Teen Movie” and actually just wrote “Revenge of the Nerds.” It's a series of teen sex-related vignettes, and together they make up a theme of instructional videos. In the end, every single scenario goes wrong or in some creepy, ridiculous direction. They're all funny, it's got a really great cast, and some of the Saturday Night Live guys, Will Forte and Andy Samberg, wrote on it, too.

My role is this guy who wakes up in bed after a crazy night and doesn't have any recollection of what happened the night before. He wakes up next to a beautiful girl. I was very excited about that, only to find out once she rolls over that there's a really, really creepy European man named Mateo who's naked with long hair and a creepy accent. Not to mention that there's a whole bunch of blueberry yogurt all over me. And what's funny about that is that this guy is played by Jamie Kennedy, who's my old boss. Only in Hollywood can you work for someone and then find yourself covered in blueberry yogurt, in bed, almost naked with them.

When you first came out to Los Angeles, it was for a role in a TV show called The Mayor, and then that show didn't air. Was that discouraging for you at all, to kind of get your first glimpse into how Hollywood works?

Everything's discouraging, first of all. I was doing a play called “The Graduate” right before, and you kind of grow up dreaming about Broadway and then when you get to do it way too soon, you kind of want that dream, that excitement to go on for a little bit longer. Then you see that Hollywood and Broadway are the same—they're all about contacts, and making money and celebrities.

But in the end, you've just got to stop and say to yourself, “This is really amazing.” I came out here to do a show, and yeah, it got cancelled. But at the same time, I get to say, ok, well, Adam Sandler was my boss, and I got to be on a sitcom, and on a television set and I got to learn the little things like the cameras and how they all work and I got to work with all these really, really cool people in that cast. And a couple of them are still some of my best friends. I just spent a lot of time with Lizzie Caplan (Mean Girls, Related). Lizzie played my girlfriend, she was one of my first friends that I met out here. I made good friends, good connections. It was really a wonderful experience regardless of the fact that it didn't air. Which was fine, because they still had to pay me for a bunch of episodes even if it didn't air [laughs].

[So how did you get your big break on Broadway on “The Graduate?”]

I had just graduated college with an acting major at Ithaca. Right before I had graduated, my agent called me. She called me and said, “Do you want to go to New York, take a little road trip? Jason Biggs is leaving “The Graduate” for a couple months over the summer to shoot a Woody Allen film, do you want to audition to take over for him?” And you think it's a crapshoot, there's no way that's going to happen. So I went to the audition and I thought that was just sort of the end of it. That was my first sort of experience, which you come to realize every time, walking into a room with a whole bunch of other Ben Feldmans, that they could very well play the exact same thing as me for the rest of my life.

And I thought it was over and then she called me on my drive home, and she said, “They want to put you on a bus and have you come back next week and audition again with Kathleen Turner's understudy.” And I thought that was really cool. So I got on the bus and went back and did it and thought that would be the end of it. And then on the bus home, my agent called me and said, “Okay, they're going to fly you back next week and have you audition on stage with Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone.” So that was the most surreal moment. You kind of get used to it after your first couple times, so that moment was huge for me. I got on the plane and went out there and Kathleen was really intimidating, and I got to be on a Broadway stage, which is always a dream come true.

And then just like with the Hollywood movies, it went on for a million years, waiting for everyone to sign off, and then I didn't get the part. And you know who did? Josh Radnor, who is the star of How I Met Your Mother.

So I moved to New York City. Two weeks later, I got my first job—I was going to wait tables. After my first day, my agent calls and says, “Jason's understudy is actually leaving and they remember you from the audition, do you want to come in and take over for that guy?” Sure, it beats waiting tables.

And to this day, no matter what movie or show I did or will do, my favorite thing ever was waking up in the West Village and doing a play on Broadway every week. That was pretty cool. Except we all walk out of the same door, the cast, at the end, and there's like three uber-celebrities, and then like the rest of us, and imagine leaving your job 8 times a week to a giant crowd of people on the street who are disappointed that you're not who they wanted to see. Every night I would walk out and there'd be a whole bunch of people ready for Jason to sign their autograph and they'd all get really excited and you'd watch their face and all of a sudden you could see the realization. They'd get all excited, they'd all gasp, then they'd go, “oh,” drop their hands, then patiently wait for Jason.

I know you've done a lot of comedy—do you want to stick with that or do you think you'll try drama?

I would love to do drama. Comedy's a lot of fun and I think some people can do it, and some people can't. And I don't think that I'm any more talented than anybody who's not funny. I just think that some people were born accidentally with an understanding of how to say things and get a laugh. And so I've been lucky, because I guess not a lot of young actors are that funny. At least that's what I'm learning out here in Hollywood. I've been lucky, I've gotten roles because of that, especially in sitcoms.

But I'd love to do drama. I'd like to be taken seriously at some point. I have tremendous respect for comedy. A lot of times, it's really easy work, but a lot of times, it's far harder to do, especially if you're doing a sitcom. It's like playing the drums, it's like dancing. It's a rhythm. You have to say this at this point, sort of in this tone. You have to be looking that way and you have to pause just this much before you say it, or else you can ruin it. There were actors that used to come on our show that were brilliant actors but they were drama kind of actors and they never got the laughs because it's all timing.

It seems you've done a lot of Jewish roles, from Living With Fran, to When Do We Eat? Have you actively pursued Jewish roles or were you kind of just thrown into that?

You know, it just kind of happened. It's funny, When Do We Eat?—it doesn't get Jew-ier than that. And that was a weird thing because the movie was about a Passover Seder, and it took about a month and a half to shoot. And a hardcover Passover Seder, sitting on the floor and all that sort of stuff. So everyday, for weeks, we'd have to come in, in the same clothes, with the same group of people. A lot of movies, you only see the other actors some days, but here, every single one of us had to show up every day and sit at the same table in the same clothes, eating and drinking the same stuff for weeks. Literally, I couldn't do Passover for like another year or two after that. I was so Passover-ed out.

The movie's called When Do We Eat? so inevitably, everyone has to eat, and it hasn't happened. So when you do finally, and you're supposed to be really hungry, so everyone in the cast, all of the actors, kind of came up with their own excuses for why their character wouldn't be scarfing the food. I didn't come up with one of those excuses, so I'm like downing cold three-day old lamb for days straight at 10 in the morning. It's like a lamb stew, just gross. But no, I did not pursue Jew roles, they just seem to come to me. I guess I just exude Judaism in Hollywood.

Coming from a Jewish background, what was it like for you working on that film?

I think most Jews can sort of understand what's great and what's really annoying about a Passover Seder. It's the same thing with family. You love to see them, you love to be with them, but at the same time, everyone drives everybody crazy. I think any religion or race can kind of understand it. It's the same thing with Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas, it's about family, and everyone drives everyone crazy, because families are just groups of crazy people. So it was very familiar for me.

And thank God I was Jewish and understood everything that was going on. And I actually learned a whole lot doing that movie because the Director was pretty hardcore Jewish and there was a lot of reading about Passover and learning about the traditions, far more than what I had known before. So it was actually quite a learning experience.

There was always coconut macaroons and Matzo on set. We ate a lot of Jewish food. That's the one thing about Hollywood—when you're working, you're fatter, because there's always food. So yeah, that was a fun movie, and I learned a lot, and I felt more Jewish afterwards, but then I had to steer clear of Passover for two years. My family didn't understand it but I was like, watch the movie and you'll understand. It's the Jewiest thing I've ever done.

Was it nice to incorporate Jewish traditions into your work?

Yeah, no matter what, if there's something about a role that you're playing, a job that you're doing, that there's another element from your life that you can bring into it, that's great. So to be a Jew playing a Jewish character, there's so much more that you sort of get about the character. You can pitch ideas to the writers—what if he said this or was doing this? You can draw from experiences that someone who wasn't Jewish wouldn't be able to bring to the role. So no matter what it is, it's always nice to have something that major in the character that you can draw from your own life and make work.

What character that you've played so far do you think you're most like?

That's the thing. You go to acting class in college and you learn to play Kings in Shakespeare and then you go to Hollywood and you start to learn that for a while at least, you're kind of just playing you in different outfits. So I think that a lot of the characters, there's a lot of me in all of them. Josh of course, in Living with Fran, there's certainly a nerdy, neurotic side to me, that's constantly complaining and nervous. It was to the point where the writers on the set started calling me Josh.

The most important thing for a show to start becoming good is when the writers get you as a person, so they start writing for you. So a lot of that character was me because they started incorporating things. But in The Perfect Man, he was artsy and cool and all things I tried to be when I was in high school. So there was a lot of that there too. But each one of them was me. In fact, I'm excited for the day when I'm playing the one that is not me. That's when you know you've made it.

What was life like for you growing up as a Jewish teen?

I come from a town that's filled with Jews. Potomac, Maryland. There's so many Jews. It was weird for me in college but really weird for me to come here now and to meet people and friends who don't come from a place where there are lots of Jews. Slang and references to Jewish things are completely foreign to my friends out here. And that's weird to me because I felt completely at home growing up because I had tons and tons of friends named Bernstein or Goldblatt. I knew all the Jews. It was easy and it was fun and everyone was sort of on the same page. Wealthy Jew Land. There's a lot less Jews as my friends out here, now they're all my bosses. Growing up they were all my friends, out here they're all in charge of you.

What has been your most memorable Hollywood experience?

I was visiting Terezin, a holding camp, last year in Prague with my girlfriend at the time. And it was depressing and everything was rainy and grey, and it was where they held the Jews before they sent them off to the concentration camp. It was empty at the time and there was this museum in the middle and we were having our little very serious, sad, Jewish moment where we're looking at pictures on the wall and reading about artifacts and sort of trying to understand a little bit more about the Holocaust.

And all of a sudden, a giant Canadian Teen Tour came in, and that's sort of my demographic. And one by one, the girls sort of started to recognize me. I said to my girlfriend, we've got to get out of this room, this is getting weird. So we left and sort of spent the rest of the day in the museum avoiding them. We went into one room, we went into the other room, and finally, we made it to the last room, the barracks, where the beds were, with the wooden walls—just terribly depressing and sad. The teens were all in there so we stood outside there and waited for them to leave. And finally they all sort of exited and we got some looks and they all went by and we go in and there were two young guys in the room, so we figured we were in the clear. We walk in, and one of them walks over to me and taps me on the shoulder and goes, “Excuse me, were you in The Perfect Man? And I whisper, “Yeah, yeah,” and he goes, (yelling) “He was!”

Nine teenage girls come back in and it was just surreal and I'm taking pictures and we're hugging and they're smiling, and behind us on the walls are these black and white pictures of the Holocaust. It was the most surreal thing that's ever happened to me. Other than premiers and stuff, it was the biggest group to ever recognize me at one time, and for that to happen in Prague, in a holding camp, it could not have gotten more bizarre than that.

You can't be mean, because you're so lucky wherever it happens, that it happens to you. Their counselor sort of understood how weird it was. Of all places to sign autographs. You just smile, say hello, and tell them “No, I'm not going to give you Hilary's phone number.” Literally, one of them asked me for her phone number, at a concentration camp. Imagine if some girl called Hilary and said, “Hey, I'm at a concentration camp in Prague, I'm 14, my name's Melissa, Ben gave me your phone number.” I don't think she'd ever speak to me again. There's a Hollywood experience for you. Only in Hollywood could something like that happen, even if it's not in Hollywood.

That'll be my Letterman story, but we'll let JVibe break the news.

Nicole Roberge is a L.A.-based journalist and founder of Tuned In Music, an online music magazine.