TV

Skylar Astin focuses on comedy in ‘Ground Floor’

Skylar Astin may have got his show biz start in Broadway’s “Spring Awakening,” but that doesn’t mean he’ll be singing his heart out on his latest endeavor — the new romantic sitcom “Ground Floor,” premiering Thursday at 10 p.m. on TBS.

“It’s comedy first, so I really am happy that we’re not going the cheap route of oh, ‘Let’s just fix it with Skyler singing!’ ” says Astin, best-known for his role as Anna Kendrick’s a capella-inclined love interest in last year’s surprise big-screen hit, “Pitch Perfect.”

“I don’t think we would earn our audience [that way],” he says.

While Astin, 26, does pipe out a few notes in the pilot, the focus is on his character Brody’s attempt to get the girl.

Brody is a white-collar guy, working for the bank Remington Trust, who also happens to be a hopeless romantic. He falls for Jennifer (Briga Heelan), who works on the titular ground floor in maintenance, which might as well be a different planet.

(The series co-stars John McGinley, best known to TV viewers as snarky, sarcastic Dr. Perry Cox on “Scrubs.”)

Throw in the fact that Jennifer has more stereotypical male ideals about romance than does Brody, and the result is a workplace comedy that flips gendered rom-com tropes on their head.

“How he ends up being more the woman — I love that kind of stuff,” says Astin. “The Wall Street type of guy that you see portrayed in film or television is generally the villain. So to see this guy have such a sensitive side, I find such a sense of humor in that.”

It was something that Astin, a Rockland County native, could easily relate to. He says he’s “absolutely” a romantic, and is currently in a relationship with his “Pitch Perfect” co-star Anna Camp, 31.

So how does Astin keep things fresh?

“Generally, it’s the day to day stuff that makes me feel like I’m more of a romantic — that I can make ordinary things feel extraordinary just by listening,” he says. “Just getting a gift on an occasion that’s not even expected; remembering a first song or first moment later on. That’s something I got from my father.” While Camp and Astin don’t have the professional divide that Astin and Heelan do, they have their own drama in the form of gossip columns.

“We have a very real relationship and we try to keep it grounded in reality,” says Astin. “So to bother ourselves with other people’s opinions, it could potentially be toxic, even if it is positive stuff. This is probably the most I’ve ever talked about the relationship and that’s for a good reason, because it’s personal and it’s beautiful and I wouldn’t want to damper it with anything else.”

Camp will pop up later on in the series with a guest-role as — what else? — Brody’s ex-girlfriend.

Awkward? “No, I would never use the word ‘awkward.’ It’s only been fun,” says Astin. “Aside from thinking she’s just a wonderful person, she’s a wonderful actress, she’s a beautiful comedian, and I love working with her.”

The two will get the chance to work together again in the 2015 sequel to “Pitch Perfect,” but Astin has no inside info to spill.

“I wish I was cool enough to know something and be able to dodge this question like a professional, but the truth is I know just as little as everyone else,” he says, with a laugh.