Jeff Hiller is an American actor and comedian. He currently co-stars in HBO’s Somebody Somewhere as Joel, who welcomes Bridget Everett’s Sam back to their Kansas hometown and becomes her best friend through thick and thin. Hiller is originally from a small town in Texas, but has made his home in New York City since 2001, when and where he quickly found his comedy family at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. His stage credits include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and he scored recurring roles on Hulu’s The Hotwives of Orlando as well as The Hotwives of Las Vegas, POP’s Nightcap, USA’s Playing House, and most recently FX’s American Horror Story: NYC. Hiller sat down with me to talk about finding his way out from small-town America to big-city improv, the importance of balancing expectations with reality, and how he and Bridget Everett maintain such incredible chemistry onscreen.
Want to discover other cool Substacks? Each morning, The Sample sends you one article from a random blog or newsletter that matches up with your interests. When you get one you like, you can subscribe to the writer with one click. Sign up here.
If you’re not already subscribed to my podcast, please seek it out and subscribe to Last Things First on the podcast platform of your choice! Among them: Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Stitcher; Amazon Music/Audible; iHeartRadio; Player.FM; and my original hosting platform, Libsyn.
This transcript has been edited and condensed only slightly for your convenience.
Congratulations on Somebody Somewhere, season two now on HBO, and also, I might be one of the first to be able to congratulate you on the Peabody Award nomination?
Yeah. You're the first one. Thank you.
How have you been enjoying — is this your first award season? I know you also got to do the Independent Spirit Awards.
Yeah. I don't know — What is the award season? That’s how not plugged-in I am. I'm like, I don't know, is it my first award season? It seems like it just keeps happening?
True. Maybe it's more for films that there's a specific award season, whereas TV has the Emmys in the fall and then Golden Globes in the winter, Spirit Awards in the winter. Yeah, who knows? We are in this magical moment, as you and I talk. We're in a brief period of time where, before this Zoom, I Googled “St. Louis sushi,” and it still pulls up sushi from St. Louis. There are no other definitions for St. Louis sushi at this moment in time.
(laughs) Do you think we’ll warrant an entry in the Urban Dictionary or something?
I mean, how could it not? How could it not become a culinary thing?
Culinary? I don’t know about culinary.
Well, Cincinnati has their weird chili or whatever? I don't know. I’m getting way off topic. Who was the Sam in your hometown? Did you have one?
I had a lot of women who I obsessed over and worshipped, and wanted to just sit at their feet and watch them do cool stuff. I remember there was a woman in my college, which was in a very small town. Her name was Jennifer Cohn (sp?) and she lived in New York City and she was a glamorous — she didn't own a pair of shoes that were flat. When she worked out, she wore like these platform sneakers. And I was like, This girl. She is so cool. So you know, I'm like, I'm a gay person of a certain era. So that’s my thing, to worship fabulous women.
Do you consider yourself a Gen-Xer or Xennial?
I'm fully Gen X, just straight up. I think by definition, I can't even like fudge into being a millennial.
Some people try to be like, in astrology where they try to say, well, I'm sort of on the cusp.
I'm a millennial cusp.
I'm a Gen X Sun, but I'm a millennial Rising
And my Mars is in Zoomies or whatever those people are, what is it? Gen Z? I don't even know what they're called.
I just saw something. It was a tweet because Twitter is still a thing as we're talking. I saw a tweet…
Everybody's gonna be like before and after this podcast.
We're capturing a moment in time. So the Tweet was from a woman wanting to rename Millennials the Spice Girls Generation (Michelle Ghoussoub is a reporter for CBC).
That make sense solely from my viewing of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Every season there's that one queen, right in the middle of their 30s, who’s just like: I'm a Spice Girl drag queen!
Are they always the same Spice Girl, though?
No. No, no, no, but they're all like, GIRL POWER, and they hold their little peace fingers up.
Getting back to Somebody Somewhere on HBO, or Max — speaking of moments in time — by the time you listen to this, Somebody Somewhere is available on Max. The one to watch when you want to watch HBO.
Do you know what it reminds me of? You probably don't remember this show but do you remember the show Hart to Hart? They were husband and wife but also wherever they went there was a murder and they solved it.
They drove around in a convertible and they had like a butler.
Yeah, the butler and his name was Max. Whenever I hear Max, I think of him and I think of him being like, ‘When they met it was murder!’
Back to Somebody Somewhere..do you think Joel is who you might have been if you never left Texas?
I think I would be a lot like Joel, but I don't think I'd be quite as good as Joel. I would definitely have found a family of like-minded outsiders and I would probably be going to a church, but I don't have the organizational ability to organize a choir practice or, or like see someone and be like, what you need is to sing. And then provide a place for them to do that. I'm like, You're screwed up in your head? Me too!
That's part of Joel's thing.
I guess that's true. I mean, we look a lot alike, too.
How did you wind up finding the Upright Citizens Brigade. Especially back in 2001, was it still in the original spot, that former strip club?
Yeah, on 22nd Street. Exactly.
How did you find it so early in its existence?
Well, I was living in Denver. I was a social worker in Denver, Colorado, because I done a year of AmericaCorps there — it was like sort of a Christian version of AmericaCorps called Urban Servang Corps. To explain this. I have to say all these other things that are so confusing, but I lived in this sort of commune but like again, a Christian kind of commune. One of my good friends was also in the commune. She was like, I used to do improv in college and I'm gonna go do an improv audition or whatever here, and she was like, come with me because what if they're like a cult or a murderer or something, and so I went with her and I got on the team.
That feels like such a classic comedian origin story. It was your friend who really wanted to do it and they drag you along and then oh, no, I'm the one meant for this.
Well, she got on, too. I mean, I think pretty much anybody who could have got on did. But I should say, I wanted to perform. I wanted to be an actor since I was four years old. I just didn't think you could be. And I also told myself like, oh, I can't improvise. I'm not quick. She’s quick. I'm not quick which is like, now when people tell me that I'm like, you probably could. You just don't realize because you've never done it. And thank God that happened, because so I got really into improv and doing improv like two or three nights a week because it was like the only outlet I had for performing and also I was working with homeless youth or and then I worked with HIV prevention. It was hard work that I wasn't really good at. I took an improv class at this brand new theater that was run by a guy from Second City, called Bovine Metropolis. I remember that because it's like, cow town, bovine metropolis. That's why they call it that. And I told him, I was moving to New York for my master's in social work. And he was like, Well, if you take improv, take it at the UCB, that's the place. And I was like, I've never even heard of that. And he's like, there's a show on Comedy Central, you idiot. And then I moved here on June 1, 2001. And I signed up for my first class on June 1, 2001. It was the first thing I did. I'd come in May to get an apartment. Before I even like, went to IKEA, I went to sign up. You had to do it in person. This was before internet signups.
Coincidentally my New York City move-in date is June 1 — 2007. So by the time I got to New York City, the first Del Close marathon I went to that summer, I feel like I was catching UCB at almost the peak of its New York City existence, before people started to migrate to Los Angeles. But what was it like in June of 2001, when you had to go in person and sign up?
It was before Amy Poehler was even on SNL. I mean, they had had their Comedy Central show, so people knew about it from that. But that was sort of a cult thing. I remember my first class was with this guy, Sean Conroy. And he told me it was the worst class he ever taught, and it was really bad. There were like, I should say, there were people who were having some serious mental health issues that were enrolled in the class.
It wasn't quite as as exclusive as it is now.
Oh, God, no. No, it wasn't exclusive at all. I don't think it's that exclusive, even now, it's like if you pay them money you can come.
Well, that's exclusive. I mean, that excludes the people who don’t have money.
Right. That's like capitalism's exclusivity.
So Sean Conroy was teaching.
There was one woman in the class. And then like, all of these men who were just really — there
there was a couple that
really needed a medical intervention truly. And then there were all these bros, just like super duper bros. and I was very much the only queer person or a bit almost like the only self-aware person. One person that was in that became famous. Mike Zegen, who is on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He is Mr. Maisel. Anyway, so it was a really rough class, but I do remember. It was like before there was even a curriculum or anything. So it was just sort of like whatever Sean wanted to do that day is what we did that day. And I remember we were talking about object work and I lit some candles with a match and then I shook the match. The fact that I shook the match to put it out. I remember he like, really praised me for that. And I was like, I'm good. I'm good. I do believe that that one compliment fueled me through my four classes because I was the only gay person I ever saw. It wasn't even micro aggressions. It was like straight up, calling me the F word in a scene. You know what I mean? And by the way, I didn't say anything. I was just like, yes???
Well, you're taught to accept the offers, right?
Exactly. I mean, it's kind of bonkers. But whatever. I'm glad I did it. I wanted to be a stand-up to but I just didn't know how to do anything. I needed somebody to be like, this is a class. You can take this class. If you pay this amount of money from that terrible job you're working, you can pay this amount of money, and you can come in here and this is how you break into this world. And that is what I did. And you know, people are like, it's such a terrible deal! That you have to pay to perform. Kinda! Yeah. But it was my only entry. I didn't know anybody else and I didn't know where to start.
Well, it was a completely different atmosphere and world of choices. There were so fewer choices in 2001. So, at what point did you start to realize 1), the UCB was becoming a hot commodity and 2) that you might be able to benefit from that?
Well, I will say, I dropped out of my master's program immediately to focus on improv. So I have an inkling that this might be something, but the first time I realized, Oh, I think this is like major is when Paul Scheer was on Best Week Ever. And somebody was like, he has a deal with Whoopi Goldberg. I don't even know what that means. Even to this day. I'm like, he had a deal with Whoopi Goldberg? Anyway, the point is, if Paul Scheer is on my television, and at one point, had lunch with Whoopi Goldberg, this is a place where people are happening. Because when Amy got onto SNL, she was one of the founders, so it was sort of like, well, of course. She's different from us. She's like a grown up. She was in Chicago. She's like fancy. But somehow Paul Scheer doing well, and then Rob Huebel was, like that annoying cell phone man in the theater. And I was like, I know him! He coached my improv group. I see him on this movie screen. So that was it.
And then I realized what you could be because this guy, Bob Wiltfong, I don't even know if he would know who I was. I didn't know him. But he was on a team called Neutrino with Kurt Braunohler. I know he was on your podcast.
And he had a blog. A blog that was like, This is what it's like to audition for commercials. And I used it, much like this podcast I imagine people use to be like, this is my entry. I just need some information on how to get an agent and what do you do when you go in? Try and hold a Snickers bar up your head or whatever.
How do you do that convincingly, when you know 200 people are doing it?
Well, he would talk about a class he took and how he got an agent out of that class. And so then I'd be like, all right, I need to save up $350 to take this class. And so that means I have to pull back on some of my improv teams because they all cost money. That was how I planned.
Yeah, I mean, 2007 was the year I moved to New York City. It was the year that I started the website. The Comic’s Comic. And part of it, frankly, was because I didn't feel like there was any place that people could go to get information about what's happening in comedy or why it's happening.
That’s so true.
You mentioned Scheer and Huebel. That's when they had their MTV show Human Giant with Aziz. And it just felt like everything was happening at that point.
Totally. It was, and then everybody moved to LA. And then when you go there, when you go to LA, it's like all you can talk about is how comedy works. It’s literally the only conversation you could have had, I lived there for four years. I didn't have any other conversations besides that.
They're always talking about taking a meeting like, What do you mean taking a meeting? Going to lunch?
That is they mean by taking a meeting, is going to lunch, and they go to cafe 101, which is called something else now. And they sit there and they, you know, talk about a screenplay and then at the table behind them, there's two people talking about a pilot.
I was just back in LA for a week in February. And it was my first time back in the UCB Franklin venue, under the new ownership. And it felt the same but weird.
I was just there, too. I did a show there in March and it was strange. You know whaat was even weirder? Doing shows at Improv Asylum on 26th Street after the UCB had left. That one was really really weird because it was like you had to go back in time. It was very disconcerting for my aged brain.
That’s the classic feeling that anyone has when they go to a high school reunion and they go back into their school. Like wait, this is the building? It seems smaller. Everything's different now.
I have to just do this now because I will never go to my high school reunion.
Now that theater is no more, it's gonna be luxury condos.
I know, it's demolished.
I know you've mentioned on in other interviews and podcasts that your IMDB catalog sometimes reads like a hate crime.
That's a joke from my stand-up. Which I probably have said on podcasts, as if I'm just thinking of it right then and there.
One of the other things I noticed, though, is things didn't really seem to pick up for you. according to IMDb until 2011 — 10 years after you signed up for that class.
Yeah Sean! That's true!
But I'm asking you now because there's a happy ending. You’re on HBO. Everything is great now, but during that 10-year-period, were there moments where you're like, I might have to move back to Texas?
Not that. No, no, no. Not that.
Or I might have to move back to Denver?
I had moments. It was really difficult. I mean, first of all, I’m just unique in general. Like I don't look like someone who's on TV. And a lot of times in interviews people are like, what's it like to be the lead on a TV show and not be conventionally attractive? And you're like: Jesus! I can say it, you can't say it! But I know that I don't fit in well. I also came here like when Will and Grace had just started and so I think there was really like this thing of like, we have our one gay show and we don't need anything else. And I'm just really gay, like no one is going to be like, you play the father — unless the father has a little secret. You know what I'm saying? Like, just I never got cast in that. So I just spent 10 years. I did theater and stuff like that, too. But that wouldn't show up on my IMDB page. It was pretty good. Pretty good stuff.
But did you any Snickers commercials or things like that?
It’s funny you say that? I was in a Snickers commercial. I was in six Snickers commercials, 30 minutes of web content, plus a national tour of NFL games. And that would have been around 2007. I did a lot of commercials. And it took time to break into that commercial field, too. Because I was reading Bob Wiltfong’s blog in 2003. And I got my first commercial in 2007. So I think I would say is, I feel like if you stick around long enough, you probably will find a niche and find a way in, but I also felt like if I hadn't gotten Somebody Somewhere, I was ready to explode. just I had so much more to give and no one would let me give it. I will say, I lived in LA for four years trying to make it there, and I tested for pilots and things like that, but nothing ever actually went. When I came back here I started doing stand-up. I didn't know the stand-up world so what I ended up doing, so my first big show, I did an hour and just rented out The Duplex. Because I didn't know like, oh, you should do 10 minutes. Don’t do 60 minutes first!
You should go to Rififi. You should go to the smaller rooms and clubs.
I even went to Rififi, did bits and sketches. I did. Anyway the point is, I know I'm lucky. I know there are people who are just as talented as me with just as many obstacles if not more, who haven't had that lucky moment of matching a TV show that people actually watch with the talents that they actually possess. I realize that's complete luck and I'm very grateful for it.
Before that happened though? How did you reconcile: I need this gig. I want this gig. But this gig is a hate crime. Where it's like I need to be on TV. I want to be on TV. I know this is not serving me well. I've watched some some comedy shows by comedians where they lean into the satire of it — usually about their ethnicity — they go to an audition and they have this scene where the casting people are like, Yeah, but you're not doing it right. So they have to lean into the stereotype. Is that what it felt like for you in that period of time?
I think the sort of weird thing is that I am already the stereotype. I don't have to lean in that much. Like, I once read something. I’d done a pilot that didn’t make it to air and I was just a guest-star on it, and they wrote something like not cool. This homophobic character is the kind of gay we don't portray anymore. And it was just me being me. And I was like, I didn’t even think this was a bad one. It was written by a gay person and he made the role specifically for me because it was like something I do. Anyway, I think what I’ve tried to do is just play every role to the top of my intelligence. And I think that's why I booked some of them, is because I made it more than just a stereotype. I made it into a more specific person, as opposed to just the bitch or just the tailor. There was one role I had to do where I played a tailor a recurring role as a tailor. And I did it three times and in every episode of this show, it was a soap opera
Guiding Light
Well, OK, Sean. All I did was measure the thing and the reason they brought me in is every single episode, the guy would be like, hey! that’s my junk! when I took the inseam. And that one I did feel like some jobs are really just for the health insurance. And I found out later it was just for AFTRA, not SAG.
Looking over your credits, a couple of the things that were bigger for you before this, the Hot Wives series or Playing House, and both of those, you're in essence playing house with your UCB mates.
Yeah, I'm in a lot of shows created by UCB people but all of them are created by women at the UCB. That's not true: Anthony Atamanuik and Pete Grosz put me on The President Show, playing a reporter, so I should give them full credit for that. But everyone, I think it's just because like, they don't know how to write a gay guy or whatever.
They can sketch something and then just say you flesh it out.
I would be happy to. It didn’t happen.
I just read an interview with Bill Lawrence and it was specifically talking about the show he has on Apple TV+ now called Shrinking, with Jessica Williams where he talked about, well, I can't write for a black woman. So I just wrote what I could and then told Jessica, you make it your own.
That's wonderful. I think that's great. To realize that, too.
How important was it then to have those UCB connections to be able to sustain you?
It was really important, and I was so grateful. I was on Broad City. Difficult People Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Playing House. There's others, even Bridget's show certainly. It was so wonderful, but those five credits are over like a six year period. I mean, like it didn't. This is not a slight against them. It just didn't pay the bills completely. So you teach improv. You do corporate improv events. You temp when it gets desperate. I was temping in 2018. It's not pretty.
But it's real. It's the real life of being an actor or comedic actor. To bring this on home, one of the many things I love about Somebody Somewhere is just how much, like I don't know how much you actually knew Bridget before the show, but in every episode, there are these moments where you two just connect on such a deep emotional level and devolve into giggles, but it's called for in the script. It's not like you're cracking each other up to try to make you break, like a sketch on SNL or something like that. It's more like, that’s how close friends you are in the show is that no matter how painfully single either or both of you might be in the show, you can always giggle about it.
Right? The show runners — Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen — they have this thing about everything needs to be authentic. And it's not a TV show. It's real life. And so you laugh a lot in real life. But it's not a sitcom, when somebody says something that's like, genuinely hilarious — if you said it in real life, everybody would be like, what!? Which you know happened in the writers room when they pitched that idea? Right? They laughed about it so hard. But in sitcom world, you sort of ignore that, and move on. And so in in our world, it's important to actually react to the funny thing that your friend said in the way that you would react to anything that your friends said.
Yeah, you're not relying on the audience to do the laughing.
We improvise, but we don't improvise in a way that's like, let's think of the wackiest thing in the world. You're improvising along the lines — you have a script, but you take the words, you put them up differently in your mouth, you might pitch something new in a take so that it makes your scene partner giggle harder and stuff. But you're not trying to be bizarre or strange. You're trying to be authentic. You're trying to be real. So I think that helps give our characters chemistry.
Had you done much at Joe's Pub?
I was. That's where I ended up. I mean, at first I did that hour long at The Duplex. Perfected it, and then I took it to Joe's Pub, where I did it a few times. And then I’ve done a few shows there. I'm doing another one in August. I just signed the paperwork. I don't even have a title yet. Gotta write it!
And since you brought this up yourself in the interview, if there's if there's a 17 or 18 year old queer kid out there in Texas or Kansas or Denver, who's listening to this podcast, and it's like, I know there's something for me in the big city, or I know there's something for me out there more than this small town existence. What would you tell them?
First of all, I don't think they're listening to me. I don't have a big, youth fan base but if they are…If this gets clipped on TikTok, I would say: You know yourself. Don't let other people tell you who you are. You know who you are. Trust yourself, not what other people tell you. That’s what I would say. What would you say? Let's say there's a 17 year old who’s like I want to start a website. I'm gonna have a podcast. I want to dissect comedy and review.
Run! Run away. It's not working out. Don’t fall into the trap I did. But then again, I mean, think I've heard this enough from comedians to know that it's true for me too, as a journalist or as a writer. I don't do this because I like doing this. I do this because it's really the only thing I know. Everything else feels like I'm faking. Everything else feels like I'm acting. This doesn't.
Which is beautiful. That means you're on the right path. That means you're listening to yourself and not the world, because the world would be like, it's too hard. Don't do it. When I told my mom I wanted to be a child actor. She was like, You're too tall. But I listened to my own heart.
And look at you now: You are somebody and you are somewhere.
That’s right!
Well, Jeff Hiller, thank you so much. I know this helped me immensely. I hope it worked out well for you and for anybody listening.
Awesome.