“I know it’s a cliche to say I wasn’t expecting it, but I was not expecting it,” says Jeff Hiller of his shock Emmy nomination for his supporting position within the HBO comedy “Somebody Somewhere.”
One might forgive Hiller’s low expectations. Starring Bridget Everett as Sam, a single, middle-aged lady navigating small-town life in Kansas alongside her greatest good friend, Joel (Hiller), the crucial darling was named one of many AFI’s greatest TV exhibits of the 12 months in 2023 and gained a Peabody in 2024, but didn’t earn consideration from the Tv Academy. And in a crowded area of comedian rivals — Emmy winners “Abbott Elementary,” “The Bear” and “Hacks,” plus the celeb-stuffed “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Studio” — it appeared unlikely for the small-town dramedy to interrupt via in its ultimate 12 months. “No one had said, ‘I bet it’s gonna happen,’” says Hiller.
Which is why Hiller wasn’t tuned into the Emmy noms announcement final month, and even ignored the decision from his supervisor that morning. “I was on the phone with my sister, and I was like, ‘They’ll call back.’” says Hiller. When that dialog was interrupted by one other name, this time from his agent, Hiller assumed that he was in hassle. “I [was about to] shoot a movie, and I thought, ‘Oh, crap. Am I supposed to be in Boston right now?’” As for a way he clinched the nom, Hiller’s greatest guess is the well timed publication of his comedian memoir, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success,” which hit bookstores simply two days earlier than Emmy voting opened in June.
Amongst his cohort of Emmy-nominated performers, the remainder of Hiller’s day might have been essentially the most humble of all of them: “I hung up with my agent, went to the airport to go to Boston and spent the night alone in a Residence Inn.”
Hiller, proper, with Tim Bagley in “Somebody Somewhere.”
(Sandy Morris / HBO)
However there’s one thing completely thematic a couple of no-frills Emmy nom celebration, notably for the actor enjoying “Somebody Somewhere’s” candy and lovable sidekick Joel. An area of Manhattan, Kan. — the place Everett’s Sam returns following the demise of her sister and, over time, builds a selected household of misfits and weirdos — Joel is the perfect good friend everybody would need, somebody who’s supportive to a fault and infrequently pushes Sam to seek out pleasure within the on a regular basis.
Simply because the present introduces Joel and Sam within the pilot, Hiller was a fan of Everett’s earlier than they started their collaboration. Each actors moved to New York and established their very own chosen households round efficiency: Everett within the downtown cabaret scene, centered on Joe’s Pub on the Public Theater; Hiller at Upright Residents Brigade, the place he taught and carried out improv. Whereas Everett made a reputation for herself together with her bawdy exhibits mixing rock ballads and blue humor, Hiller appeared on and off-Broadway and steadily gained bit components in movie and TV, typically enjoying homosexual waiters, assistants and salesmen. Their worlds in New York naturally overlapped, and it was Everett who reached out to Hiller about an audition for Joel’s character in 2019.
Jeff Hiller. (The Tyler Twins / For The Occasions)
In comparison with the smaller roles that populate Hiller’s IMDb web page, Joel — one of many extra nuanced queer characters on tv in recent times — is extra finespun. Having grown up in a Lutheran household in San Antonio, Hiller acknowledged a variety of himself in a 40-something homosexual man who attends church, even when a queer Christian could seem unfamiliar to metropolitan viewers on both coast. “I know people in Texas who are gay and who go to church every week, and that’s where they found their community — that’s the place that is nice to them,” he says. “I know this guy so well. I would have been this guy if I hadn’t moved to New York.”
Hiller commends collection creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen (who, alongside Everett, earned an Emmy nomination this 12 months as writers of the collection finale) for Joel’s complexity and for constructing a world wherein its marginalized characters aren’t consistently burdened by what makes them totally different. “I’m sure there are small-minded people in Manhattan, but our show just wasn’t focused on that part,” he says. “That takes a lot of work in the storytelling for a mainstream audience. I kind of [worried] we’d never get picked up.”
However Joel is rather more than “a gay guy who goes to church,” as evident in his Season 3 arc, which sees him settling right into a relationship with the equally candy, if extra introverted, Brad (performed by Tim Bagley). Getting into his first actual relationship at center age is bittersweet for Joel, who all the time imagined reaching the standard milestones — together with having youngsters. “He’s grateful for the life he’s had, but he’s also mourning the things he dreamed of having that he can no longer have,” explains Hiller. “I found that to be true to me in my life. It’s scarier to portray things that are so naked and real, obvious and truthful.”
Joel additionally has a cathartic reunion with a childhood bully, spun from conversations wherein Bos and Thureen requested Hiller what he would wish to hear from his personal previous tormentors. “That’s for me and my therapist to discuss,” he jokes. Whereas he’s nonetheless processing his Emmy nom and planning for the HBO after-party (“Do they let you in even if you don’t win?”), he treasures the expertise of constructing “Somebody Somewhere” as its personal reward. “If I could play a role like that for six weeks once a year, for the rest of my life? I’d be more than fulfilled.”
