Fashion & Beauty

Meet the breakout star of ‘While We’re Young’

Perhaps the most shocking news to come out of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival was that the guy to watch is a reality star on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing New York.”

“Frances Ha” director Noah Baumbach’s new movie, “While We’re Young,” stars Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, but it’s broker Ryan Serhant many are buzzing about.

“The audience [at the Toronto premiere] had 2,200 people in it,” Serhant said Tuesday night. He was back in New York at The Cut and New York magazine’s Fashion Week party on the High Line. “Everyone was raving about it. I was like, ‘Are you sure? I can’t really tell. Was it that funny?’ But then I flew back and I get off the plane and I’ve got like 52 text messages. A lot of them are from my manager like, ‘OH MY GOD. THE REVIEWS ARE CRAZY.’ ”

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Serhant’s unlikely casting came about last summer when Baumbach’s team reached out to Serhant after seeing him on “Million Dollar Listing” and asked him to come read for a part.

“I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ ” he said. “So I read for it and then didn’t hear for like four months, and then they randomly called and said, ‘Listen, we want you to read with Ben.’ ”

Two days later, he was cast.

Before his real estate days, Serhant was a struggling actor — his biggest credit being the soap “As the World Turns.” But a reality star landing a movie role, let alone getting positive feedback for said movie role, is almost unheard of.

Bravo fans may recognize Serhant from the series “Million Dollar Listing New York.”Bravo

“Other ‘[Real] Housewives’ have gone and done guest spots, but this is like true indie cred,” he concurred. “That’s all people keep telling me. Like, ‘Just so you know, this is unprecedented.’ ”

Now that he’s a breakout star, Serhant’s got his eye on a new project.

“Michael Bay,” he joked, adding he should be in the next “Transformers.” “Yeah, as a broker, who has to fight robots. I would do that. It’d be good for clients.”

In reality, he’s not planning on taking any meetings in Hollywood just yet.

“I film almost every day for ‘Million Dollar Listing.’ Business is crazy right now,” he says. “[But] if an opportunity presents itself … I say yes to everything — except for drugs.”