Jeff Hiller: ‘Somebody Somewhere’s’ Joel was ‘true to me’ too

“I know it’s a cliche to say I wasn’t expecting it, but I was not expecting it,” says Jeff Hiller of his surprise Emmy nomination for his supporting role in the HBO comedy “Somebody Somewhere.”

One could forgive Hiller’s low expectations. Starring Bridget Everett as Sam, a single, middle-aged woman navigating small-town life in Kansas alongside her best friend, Joel (Hiller), the critical darling was named one of the AFI’s best TV shows of the year in 2023 and won a Peabody in 2024, yet failed to earn attention from the Television Academy. And in a crowded field of comic competitors — Emmy winners “Abbott Elementary,” “The Bear” and “Hacks,” plus the celeb-stuffed “Only Murders in the Building” and “The Studio” — it seemed unlikely for the small-town dramedy to break through in its final year. “No one had said, ‘I bet it’s gonna happen,’” says Hiller.

Which is why Hiller wasn’t tuned into the Emmy noms announcement last month, and even ignored the call from his manager that morning. “I was on the phone with my sister, and I was like, ‘They’ll call back.’” says Hiller. When that conversation was interrupted by another call, this time from his agent, Hiller assumed that he was in trouble. “I [was about to] shoot a movie, and I thought, ‘Oh, crap. Am I supposed to be in Boston right now?’” As for how he clinched the nom, Hiller’s best guess is the timely publication of his comic memoir, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success,” which hit bookstores just two days before Emmy voting opened in June.

Among his cohort of Emmy-nominated performers, the rest of Hiller’s day may have been the most humble of them all: “I hung up with my agent, went to the airport to go to Boston and spent the night alone in a Residence Inn.”

But there’s something perfectly thematic about a no-frills Emmy nom celebration, particularly for the actor playing “Somebody Somewhere’s” sweet and lovable sidekick Joel. A local of Manhattan, Kan. — where Everett’s Sam returns following the death of her sister and, over time, builds a chosen family of misfits and weirdos — Joel is the best friend everyone would want, someone who is supportive to a fault and often pushes Sam to find joy in the everyday.

Just as the show introduces Joel and Sam in the pilot, Hiller was a fan of Everett’s before they began their collaboration. Both actors moved to New York and established their own chosen families around performance: Everett in the downtown cabaret scene, centered on Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater; Hiller at Upright Citizens Brigade, where he taught and performed improv. While Everett made a name for herself with her bawdy shows blending rock ballads and blue humor, Hiller appeared on and off-Broadway and steadily won bit parts in film and TV, often playing gay 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 Times)

Compared to the smaller roles that populate Hiller’s IMDb page, Joel — one of the more nuanced queer characters on television in recent years — is more finespun. Having grown up in a Lutheran family in San Antonio, Hiller recognized a lot of himself in a 40-something gay man who attends church, even if a queer Christian may seem unfamiliar to metropolitan viewers on either 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 series creators Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen (who, alongside Everett, earned an Emmy nomination this year as writers of the series finale) for Joel’s complexity and for building a world in which its marginalized characters aren’t constantly burdened by what makes them 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.”

But Joel is much more than “a gay guy who goes to church,” as evident in his Season 3 arc, which sees him settling into a relationship with the equally sweet, if more introverted, Brad (played by Tim Bagley). Entering his first real relationship at middle age is bittersweet for Joel, who always imagined achieving the typical milestones — including having kids. “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 also has a cathartic reunion with a childhood bully, spun from conversations in which Bos and Thureen asked Hiller what he would want to hear from his own past tormentors. “That’s for me and my therapist to discuss,” he jokes. While he’s still 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 experience of making “Somebody Somewhere” as its own 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.”