Jeff Hiller's Big Break Came In His 40s

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Speaker 2 This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross.
I think it's fair to say that everyone who watched the HBO series Somebody Somewhere, including me, wanted actor Jeff Hiller to be their friend.

Speaker 2 He played Joel, a sympathetic and supportive friend with a great sense of humor. Somebody Somewhere was the big break Hiller had been hoping for for decades.

Speaker 2 As he writes in his new memoir, if you're obviously gay but not hot, your roles are limited.

Speaker 2 You just play the bitchy gay, which is what he played in lots of small parts and episodes of lots of different TV shows and commercials.

Speaker 2 More recently, he played a serial killer who targets gay men in American Horror Story. His new memoir is called Actress of a Certain Age, My 20-Year Trail to Overnight Success.

Speaker 2 Somebody Somewhere concluded its third and final season last December. Now Jeff Hiller's nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Speaker 2 The story is built around the characters of Sam, played by Bridget Everett, and Joel, Jeff Hiller's character.

Speaker 2 When the series begins, Sam had returned from New York to Manhattan, Kansas, where she grew up, to help care for her sister who was dying of cancer.

Speaker 2 After the sister's death, Sam stays in Kansas where her other sister still lives. Sam has no friends there and has an argumentative relationship with her sister.

Speaker 2 Sam feels so lost and rejected that she takes offense easily and doesn't realize that in order to avoid rejection, she's pushing people away. But she becomes very close to Joel.

Speaker 2 He introduces her to his found family of LGBTQ people and artists who secretly have a nighttime nighttime cabaret at the church, where Joel is the pianist and has a key. He gets her to sing again.

Speaker 2 She's a great singer who doesn't think she's any good.

Speaker 2 In the second episode, when they're becoming friends, she visits his home and sees a large, elaborate collage standing up against the wall in the living room.

Speaker 2 She asks if it's his dream board, and he corrects her. It's his vision board.
Bridget Everett's character Sam speaks first.

Speaker 3 You really spent some time on this.

Speaker 3 Are you going to go to Paris? You got an Eiffel Tower there. Well, just Europe.
I want to go to Europe. Okay.

Speaker 3 Oh, and then, of course,

Speaker 3 everybody's hands and a heart. Community.

Speaker 3 Great.

Speaker 3 Was that a blender or something?

Speaker 3 It's a Vitamix. I just, I really want to have a nice kitchen.
And, oh, what's this one? Is this...

Speaker 3 You and Michael and your nine adopted kids or what? It's not nine, it's six. Oh.
And four of them are adopted, yes. Okay.

Speaker 3 And you want to do all of this here in Kansas?

Speaker 3 Yeah, this is where I live. Oh,

Speaker 3 family, prayer circles, pots with cactus and s ⁇ . I mean, what is wrong with this? What's wrong with this?

Speaker 3 I'm dreaming about the future. This is what I want.
Well, I mean, dream all you want, Joel, but this is the future. We're in our 40s.
And it hasn't happened yet, hasn't it?

Speaker 3 It hasn't happened for you. It hasn't happened for me.
And that's because it's not going to happen. And it's definitely not going to happen here.

Speaker 3 Keep cutting up your pictures, but

Speaker 3 that's the way it is.

Speaker 3 We deserve to be happy.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 You know what?

Speaker 3 I think I should go. Don't go.
I'm going to go.

Speaker 3 Don't leave. You're going to go.

Speaker 2 Jeff Hiller, welcome to Fresh Air. I love the series, and you are so great in it.
Thank you so much for being on the show. Congratulations on the Emmy nomination and the memoir.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Wow, I've got a lot going on.
Yes.

Speaker 2 So since we just heard your character, Joel's vision board, let's talk about the similarities between you and Joel, because there are several. You want to point some out?

Speaker 3 Sure. Well, first of all, I make vision boards.
Well, I've done it twice. I've done it twice and before the series, even.
And on one of them, I did have a Vitamix.

Speaker 3 And the writers didn't know that.

Speaker 3 I had a Vitamix on my vision board, and my mom got me one for my birthday.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 so it just feels very,

Speaker 3 I'm very like Joel in that sense. And I think I'm also

Speaker 3 someone who is warm and

Speaker 3 likes to laugh and is joyful. And as you said in the intro, I've normally played sort of

Speaker 3 rude customer service representatives. And

Speaker 3 so it felt like such a joy to play Joel because he did feel a lot more like me rather than putting on a scowl and acting.

Speaker 3 It felt very like something I really knew how to do because he was so similar to me. But I'm not so similar that i can look at you and say if you sing at my party

Speaker 3 everything will be better in your life that i don't know how to do which i feel guilty about because i i think sometimes people approach me on the street wanting that

Speaker 2 i'll also point out you both have a very good sense of humor because i mean like your thing is improv comedy yes that's that's what you did for years so like you know how to be funny

Speaker 3 yeah

Speaker 2 i hope so yeah we'll put that to the test exactly

Speaker 3 We'll see at the end of this interview.

Speaker 2 Another thing you have in common with the characters, you both want children and don't have them.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And most of his arc in season three is about realizing that his life is good and he's happy with his life, but he has to mourn the things that he really wanted and didn't get. And that was a really,

Speaker 3 you know, powerful teacher for me, too.

Speaker 3 Because I did.

Speaker 3 It's funny, I was never one of those people that was like

Speaker 3 carrying around a baby doll, being like, I can't wait to be a parent. But I was also never one of those people that's like, you know,

Speaker 3 why are there kids here? But you're at McDonald's, you know?

Speaker 3 I'm not one of those people either. I like kids.

Speaker 3 I love hanging out with them. And

Speaker 3 I do really have this need to

Speaker 3 provide safety for someone. And that's the thing that I really miss by not having had kids.
But I'm almost 50. My husband doesn't want them.

Speaker 3 It's not like I can just, you know, toss away the pill and see what happens. So

Speaker 3 I think that probably is not going to happen. And, you know, just like Joel,

Speaker 3 I'm mourning that too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 How did somebody somewhere change your life?

Speaker 3 Well, on just the most base level, I don't have to teach improv or temp or cater waiter.

Speaker 3 I mean, like, I'm, I'm financially stable now where I wasn't before. Um,

Speaker 3 and then

Speaker 3 it also just made me feel like

Speaker 3 an artist. I know that's sort of a heavy thing to say, but I do feel like I'm someone who had more to give than I was able to give previously.
And I feel like Joel let me show that.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 then also it's just, you know, people in Hollywood know who I am now, whereas before nobody knew who I was. Maybe a couple casting directors, but not

Speaker 3 fancy people, not the president of HBO, surely. And now

Speaker 3 people know who I am. And that's not nothing.

Speaker 2 So I mentioned this quote in my introduction, but I'm going to mention it again. You read, if you're gay but not hot, you play the bitchy gay.

Speaker 2 So to prove that,

Speaker 2 we're going to play just a few clips of you in very small parts. Okay, so we'll start with 30 Rock.

Speaker 2 This is an episode in which you're a flight attendant on a plane that's every all the passengers have been sitting on the plane waiting to take off for like a really long time.

Speaker 2 So you're the flight attendant trying to like distract them by telling them that they can watch videos because they can't use the bathroom and they can't eat. There's no food being served.

Speaker 2 So here you are.

Speaker 3 Excuse me. While we're waiting to take off, we're going to go ahead and begin begin our in-flight entertainment, which is the feature film, Legend of the Guardians, The Owls of Gahool,

Speaker 3 and some NBC sitcoms that didn't make the schedule.

Speaker 2 Okay, so that's funny and very well written in a very small part.

Speaker 2 We'll move on to Law and Order Criminal Intent, Season 10.

Speaker 2 You're part of an investigation and you're going through stolen documents.

Speaker 3 I've been through 80% of the stolen documents and I've got nothing incriminating. Just more internal memos, innocuous emails.

Speaker 4 Keep going.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 Don't bother. There's still 8,000 pages.

Speaker 2 Okay, a small part.

Speaker 2 Everyone who lives in New York has been on at least one episode. Every actor or would-be actor has been probably in at least one episode of one Law and Order franchise or another.

Speaker 2 Okay, we move on to Broad City. And in this, you're the owner-manager of a coffee shop.
The ladies' room has been closed for a while.

Speaker 2 You knock on the door and find one of your employees, played by Alana Glazer, asleep on the toilet, leaning on a large bag of expensive coffee beans. Here we go.

Speaker 3 You are so completely fired.

Speaker 3 Fine. God.

Speaker 1 But I'm at least entitled to my one free coffee a day for employees. You made that up.

Speaker 3 There is no one free coffee a day for employees. You're just a thief.

Speaker 1 Wow, did you just call me a queef? That's sexual harassment. Get out.
Go.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 So, point proven.

Speaker 2 It must have been so frustrating for so many years to have like fun parts, but really tiny ones like that.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like when I got the job playing that, I was like, oh no, not another one of these.
Cause the jobs were so few and far between that that was a thrill.

Speaker 3 And if anything, it was like, oh, good, I have a niche and sometimes I can play kind of mean people and I'll get those jobs. I have a friend and she's like, yeah, this Karen thing is good for me.

Speaker 3 I can play a Karen well.

Speaker 3 And I really identified with that.

Speaker 3 But it was more during those long periods in between these small jobs when I would think, I know

Speaker 3 I have more to give. I know I could be someone who could explore rich text and

Speaker 3 understand people's personalities and convey that.

Speaker 3 And it was,

Speaker 3 it wasn't especially frustrating when I would get these tiny roles. It was frustrating that I just in between when I would not get anything bigger.
Because

Speaker 3 honestly, being the guy who enhances the photo on Law and Order was a huge win.

Speaker 3 Huge.

Speaker 3 But I did know I had more to give. And

Speaker 3 when I turned 40, and I had never played anything like that, I did sort of think, I'll never get to play anything like that. And you feel a little powerless when you're an actor because

Speaker 3 you can't really make your own things happen. And that's why I started writing my own shows and doing stand-up.
And that's why I love improv so much is because I could control that.

Speaker 3 I could make a show happen.

Speaker 3 But I did want to act in a way that was deeper. And I'm so grateful to Bridget and HBO and all those people that made that show happen that I got to do that because it was

Speaker 3 even if we had only shot the pilot, it was just,

Speaker 3 it felt so good to

Speaker 3 be able to

Speaker 3 capital A act.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I loved it.

Speaker 2 Before we get to how when you were in school you were bullied all the time and how horrible it was.

Speaker 3 Nice tease. Yes.

Speaker 3 Stick around, everyone.

Speaker 2 Let's take a short break here. My guest is Jeff Hiller, and he's nominated for an Emmy for his performance in the HBO series Somebody's Somewhere.
Its third and final season ended last December.

Speaker 2 His new memoir is called Actress of a Certain Age. We'll be right back.
This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 So, let's get to the bullied part. Oh, yes.

Speaker 3 The big payoff for the audience.

Speaker 2 So, in real life, when you were growing up, it sounds like you didn't have friends in school. You were bullied.

Speaker 2 In junior high, when the bullying was at its worst, and the bathroom and the gym showers were like torture chambers for you,

Speaker 2 were you bullying yourself for being being gay? Like, were you picking on yourself, taking your cue from everybody else who was picking on you?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 sure. I definitely did not, I was going to say I didn't love myself, but I didn't even like myself.

Speaker 3 I did kind of think I deserved it because

Speaker 2 deserved to be bullied?

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, and deserved to be hated because I did sort of

Speaker 3 think I was bad, inherently bad, because I was gay and because I was,

Speaker 3 you know, girlish and chubby and, you know, not attractive in the conventional sense. Yeah, I did pick on myself quite a bit.

Speaker 3 But I have to tell you, I didn't do it nearly as badly as some of the other kids.

Speaker 3 They really went for it. I got the gold medal there.

Speaker 2 For you, during those years when you were bullied, church was a safe place and you were very active in it. You went nearly every day.

Speaker 2 There was youth group and Sunday school, after-school tutoring, handbell choir, senior choir, children's choir where you were the teen assistant.

Speaker 2 So it was the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Describe like the foundation of the church.

Speaker 3 Right. You hear the word evangelical, and it sounds pretty right-wing,

Speaker 3 but the ELCA is actually the

Speaker 3 slightly more progressive

Speaker 3 arm of the Lutheran Church. There are different factions.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 And so when I was growing up, that church was really a lot about

Speaker 3 social justice and

Speaker 3 being

Speaker 3 called by God to help people. Not because we are

Speaker 3 required to help people in order to get into heaven or whatever. We have grace for that.
But

Speaker 3 because we are

Speaker 3 given this wonderful gift of life from God,

Speaker 3 it's important to help other people. And so for me, the church was the place that you went if you didn't have food, if you didn't have money to pay your rent, if you didn't have,

Speaker 3 you know, we had clothing drives and

Speaker 3 we always sort of

Speaker 3 had families through this organization that we would help provide with housing and with,

Speaker 3 you know, just whatever, toiletries, things like that. A lot of people feel the church is a place that is oppressive and

Speaker 3 othering people. And there are a lot of churches like that.

Speaker 3 And and they've sort of co-opted the narrative but for me the church was a place where you could be accepted and where you could be loved and it wasn't until I came out that I kind of realized and they weren't really into gay people yet but they probably knew you were gay just as like the students in your schools knew you were gay yeah no one was ever surprised when i came out but i think

Speaker 3 but i didn't realize you couldn't be a pastor and be gay um and that has since changed the the church church now does allow openly queer pastors, but at the time you had to be celibate, whereas straight pastors could marry and have kids and things like that.

Speaker 3 And so for me, it was like a surprise that the church was oppressive.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so it must have made it extra confusing

Speaker 2 when you wanted to be a pastor and you couldn't because it meant you wouldn't be able to act out on your own sexuality because you'd have to be celibate, whereas straight people wouldn't have to be celibate to be a pastor.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And it was also, I mean, I say confusing.
It's not like I was completely unaware that gayness wasn't considered bad in the world, but it was more

Speaker 3 insulting than confusing. It was more like, but I've played all the, I've done it.
I've been here. And you've been here with me and we've been together.
And how could you now say I'm not welcome?

Speaker 2 The other thing you loved about church was the pageantry, the singing. The church was like theater for you.

Speaker 3 And you love theater. You love

Speaker 2 the whole idea of performance.

Speaker 3 And the pastor would stand up there, you know, and kind of give a show.

Speaker 3 It was lovely.

Speaker 2 And did you like being in choir?

Speaker 3 Yes, I did. And

Speaker 3 I found it.

Speaker 3 I was in choir in school, in addition to at church. And it was really, that was also sort of a safe place at school.
It was like a community. And you all had to blend and come together.
And so

Speaker 3 people were looking for how you could unite. And everyone else in every other class was looking for how they could, you know, hit me or make fun of me or call me names.
And

Speaker 3 the choir was this really unifying, cohesive space.

Speaker 2 Why did you feel called to be a pastor?

Speaker 3 Well, I do like to help people, and I do want to

Speaker 3 belong to a community.

Speaker 3 I've since realized I'm probably not the best, like, overt leader. I'm probably more of a follower.

Speaker 3 But I thought I could help people in that way, and I thought I could be there not only providing sort of logistic help, like with

Speaker 3 whatever food if you're hungry, but also

Speaker 3 emotional help, because there is such a tradition of pastors being sort of semi-therapists too, when people are having problems. And I thought I could do that well.

Speaker 3 And then when I, when I realized I couldn't do that, I thought, oh, well, then what makes sense is to go into social work or, you know, direct care, working in a shelter and then public health.

Speaker 3 And then I realized, I'm not really good at that.

Speaker 3 And so that's why I became an actor and left people not helping them at all. But I still volunteer.

Speaker 2 Aaron Powell, Jr.: So when you left the church, did that leave a big hole in your life and in your identity?

Speaker 3 Aaron Powell, well, I say I left the church. I left the want to be an ordained pastor, but I still went to church for many years.

Speaker 3 It was a hole in my identity to no longer think I was going to be a pastor because that was sort of my whole persona. was

Speaker 3 sort of this granola Christian type. And

Speaker 3 it was confusing. It was harder

Speaker 3 to admit to myself that I wanted to be an actor and to leave behind

Speaker 3 social work and then do improv while I worked at temping at J.P. Morgan Chase by day and then doing improv shows by night.
That was it was a real

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was like an identity confusing time to be like, oh, I guess I don't help people anymore. Now I just do silly jokes in this basement of this Gristidi's grocery store.

Speaker 2 What got you interested in improv?

Speaker 3 My friend, my best friend Katie,

Speaker 3 had done improv in college. And she said, I want to go to this audition, but I'm afraid to go alone.
Will you come with me? And I was like, oh, I could never do improv.

Speaker 3 I'm so bad at it, but I'll go with you in case, you know, this is a cult or whatever. And I went, and I was

Speaker 3 so good at it. I was good at it right away.
And I

Speaker 3 loved being good at something. And I

Speaker 3 wanted to do nothing but that because I had missed performing so much in the three years I was living in Denver working in social work.

Speaker 3 And I, and I just loved performing and I loved the immediacy of the laugh from the audience. And, and, and especially with improv, you can,

Speaker 3 you can kind of tailor your show to the audience, which can be that can be bad.

Speaker 3 You don't want to

Speaker 3 just go dirty because you think the audience will scream at being dirty. But it is sort of a conversation about

Speaker 3 what this particular group of people is interested in. And so I've become really good at being

Speaker 3 in dialogue with an audience and finding what they like.

Speaker 3 And then conversation. It becomes a part of the improv show, the audience.
It's not just the two scene partners doing a scene and finding where to go. It's also the audience, too.

Speaker 3 And I think that's, I still do improv today, even though I don't necessarily have a lot of time for it, but it's just

Speaker 3 feeds me.

Speaker 2 On the downside of improv, you say, and this is you speaking, only 1% of improv is fun.

Speaker 2 That's a pretty terrible track record.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 2 what keeps you in it if you have such a low regard for the results?

Speaker 3 Maybe my percentage is a little bit off, but it's true.

Speaker 2 Okay, double it. It would be 2%.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's fair. You know,

Speaker 3 it is an imperfect art form. And,

Speaker 3 you know, I also...

Speaker 3 Whenever people are like, I want to come see your improv show, I always say like, oh, it's okay. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 3 there are people who really love improv. And, you know, it's sort of like jazz or something where it's like.

Speaker 2 That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 2 I was thinking it's sort of like free jazz, which seems like it's probably more fun to play than to listen to

Speaker 2 now. I mean, in the early days when it was radical and like something brand new, it was exciting.
Right. But it's not always so exciting now.

Speaker 2 But yes, I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

Speaker 3 But you're right. All of what you just said is completely true.

Speaker 3 There are people, yeah, you know, those jazz heads that still love hearing all of that. And yes, there are people.

Speaker 3 I think sometimes it is, certainly for me, I much prefer performing it than watching it. But sometimes you can watch it and it becomes

Speaker 3 transcendent in a way that no other art form

Speaker 3 ever can, because

Speaker 3 it is happening in the moment. And when you see a group of people all in the same

Speaker 3 mind and they find these things together,

Speaker 3 you're not only laughing, you are on the verge of tears. But I say that, and that is the thing that is for sure less than 1% of happening.

Speaker 3 It's happened, you know, I've been doing improv for 25 years, and it's maybe happened twice, maybe three times. So

Speaker 3 it's,

Speaker 3 yeah, it's an imperfect art form.

Speaker 2 Your improv group is the Upright Citizens Brigade, which was co-founded by Amy Poehler. Poehler.

Speaker 2 You've taught there, and you've had some students in improv who became very successful.

Speaker 2 Name some of them?

Speaker 3 Abby Jacobson and Alana Glazer, from Broad City,

Speaker 3 and some people who weren't necessarily my students, but who I was peers with

Speaker 3 or like I would coach their improv group, like Aubrey Plaza, Donald Glover, Darcy Cardin, Ellie Kemper.

Speaker 3 I was on a team with Bobby Moynihan.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, lots of people.

Speaker 2 What was it like to see your students and your peers becoming more successful than you?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I never was like,

Speaker 3 they don't deserve it. I truly wasn't like that.
It was more like,

Speaker 3 why can't I

Speaker 3 get a break?

Speaker 3 Why

Speaker 3 all of these people who are from the same place as me are having success, but I'm not. Now, I was only comparing myself to the people who had success.

Speaker 3 I wasn't comparing the people who looked at me and thought I was having success because I was, you know, on law and order at that time. So

Speaker 3 I, but I really kept thinking, it's something I'm doing. I've done something bad.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm too gay or I'm too ugly or I'm too big

Speaker 3 because I'm very tall.

Speaker 3 And so it became, it's funny, it's kind of like that question you asked earlier. Did I bully myself? That's, I think, that was me bullying myself.

Speaker 3 But interestingly, now that I've had this success, I feel a lot of,

Speaker 3 what's the word? It's not shame. It's, it's, uh,

Speaker 3 confusion at why I have other friends who are also incredibly talented who haven't had the break that I've had recently. And I'm not sure why.

Speaker 3 I mean, I used to say, why me? And now I keep thinking, why not them?

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 3 you know, the truth is, is showbiz ain't fair. It's not a meritocracy.

Speaker 2 Well, your improv skills have come in very handy in roles like playing a cockroach for a pest control company.

Speaker 2 So tell us what that experience was like. Explain that.

Speaker 3 It was me and like four other UCB people, and this pest control company had us dress up

Speaker 3 like cockroaches, and we stood in Union Square and handed out brochures for this

Speaker 3 exterminator. That's the word I'm looking for, exterminator.
And we had to pretend that we were having a party in the walls of people's apartment buildings because

Speaker 3 the idea was that these roaches were having parties and that's why you needed this exterminator to come in and help you out. And And it was only one day.
We got free lunch and $500 and so I did it.

Speaker 3 But it was one of those times where I thought,

Speaker 3 you know, I have friends who I went to college with who own houses and they have their own washing machine in their house and

Speaker 3 I am

Speaker 3 in Union Square in a cockroach costume hiding when I see people I know come by.

Speaker 2 On a kind of related note, or perhaps not so much, you've been in a lot of commercials earlier in your career.

Speaker 2 And like in some of them, like you have one line. Like there's one commercial where your line is wedges because the woman in it is choosing between like espadrilles or wedges.
And you're going wedges.

Speaker 2 So how do you audition for a, like, what is the audition like for an ad like that?

Speaker 3 Well, it's, it's so funny that you bring up that commercial because I just met the woman who wrote it. She was at a book signing I just did, and I was like, oh my God, I had to give her a hug.

Speaker 3 It was so exciting.

Speaker 3 Because it really commercials saved me so many times financially and allowing me to get health insurance through SAG.

Speaker 3 Commercial auditions are, they're not like acting auditions. Many auditions, you'll go in and you don't say a word.
You just stand there and smile, or you mime drinking something.

Speaker 3 It's a different type of acting, and you really have to learn the rules. And I was really good at following rules, and I think a lot of actors are not good at that.

Speaker 3 And I think that's what makes me a really good guest star, too, because in a certain way, when you have tiny little roles, you just need to do this one thing so that we can get on with it.

Speaker 3 We don't need to analyze what the character's thinking. We don't care.
We just want you to

Speaker 3 do the thing.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's take another short break here, and then we'll talk some more. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jeff Hiller.

Speaker 2 He's nominated for an MA for his performance in the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. His new memoir is called Actress of a Certain Age.
We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 Now, another thing that you've done is you've auditioned a lot for Broadway shows. You've been in off-Broadway shows.
You were in one Broadway show.

Speaker 2 and you sing. And I want to play an example of you singing because you have a really nice duet with Bridget Everett in Somebody Somewhere.

Speaker 2 And this is from, I think, the first episode, where you get her to sing

Speaker 2 at this basically like

Speaker 2 cabaret that you've created. at night in church when no one is looking because you have the key because you're you're the pianist for the church and um and everybody has a great time there.

Speaker 2 And you kind of force her up to the microphone to sing. And you duet with her

Speaker 2 on the song Don't Give Up, which Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush had duetted on.

Speaker 2 So let's hear that, and we'll pick it up in the middle so we get to you right away.

Speaker 2 No fight left, or so it seems.

Speaker 3 I'm a man whose dreams have all deserted.

Speaker 3 I changed my face, I changed my name.

Speaker 3 But no one wants you when you lose.

Speaker 3 Don't give up

Speaker 3 because you have friends.

Speaker 3 Don't give up,

Speaker 3 you're not beaten yet.

Speaker 3 don't give up.

Speaker 3 Cause somewhere there's a place where we

Speaker 3 look

Speaker 3 at your head.

Speaker 3 You worry too much,

Speaker 3 it's gonna be alright.

Speaker 3 When times

Speaker 3 get rough,

Speaker 3 you can fall back

Speaker 3 on

Speaker 3 us.

Speaker 3 Don't give up.

Speaker 3 Please don't give up.

Speaker 3 Gonna walk

Speaker 3 out of here.

Speaker 3 I can't take

Speaker 3 any more.

Speaker 2 That's a really great duet. You both sound so good.

Speaker 3 She sounds so good at the end there, doesn't she?

Speaker 2 She's got a great voice. She really does.

Speaker 3 I know that's sort of like saying, you know, Paris is beautiful, but

Speaker 3 she does. She has such a great voice.
And when I read the pilot and I thought like, if I get this,

Speaker 3 I get to sing a duet with Bridget Everett. Because I was such a fan of hers before, before the show happened, because she's like a downtown star in New York City.
So it was a real thrill.

Speaker 3 I can't believe. Actually, when you were playing it, I was like, I can't believe I meant to sing a duet with Bridget Everett effort on television.

Speaker 2 So you have a great story about auditioning for Steven Sondheim, and I think this would be a good time to tell it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I did audition for Steven Sondheim in this planned revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, playing a character named Hysterium, which I wouldn't be perfect for.

Speaker 3 I don't know why somebody didn't cast me in that role. But I sang my song, and he was so into it, and I was so excited, and everyone was so effusive, and he was just so happy.

Speaker 3 And then I went home that night. And you know, like when you think something big is going to happen and you like,

Speaker 3 are just like, this is my new life. I'm a, I'm a Steven Sondheim actor.
And so I started watching all of these YouTube videos of interviews of Stephen Sondheim.

Speaker 3 And in about like, I don't know, number seven or eight, someone said, do you have to pretend that you're liking a show when you're in the audience watching it?

Speaker 3 Because people are watching you watch this show. And he said, oh, God, no, I don't ever do that.

Speaker 3 But I do have to pretend that that every actor who auditions for me is the best thing I've ever heard, or they'd all kill themselves. And I thought, oh, no.

Speaker 3 Maybe that's what was happening during that audition today. And in fact, I did find out I did not get that show.

Speaker 3 That was like my third.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was. I was.
But I'm also, I'm also used to getting the no. And there's something in theater when you get that far along, you get the no.

Speaker 3 And a lot of times in film and TV, you never even find out if there's a no or a yes. It's just you get kind of ghosted.
And so there's something about hearing a no that's like, okay, well, closure.

Speaker 3 And you just move on.

Speaker 2 You write about having a midlife crisis when you were 40. What was that about?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 I was having this crisis because I was in a financial crunch. I didn't have...
a lot of money. I had to move from LA back to New York because I hadn't gotten a job job on TV.

Speaker 3 And then the really big thing that I sort of downplay in the book comedically is that my parents were both very, very sick. My mom was dying and my dad was

Speaker 3 going through a pretty big health crisis as well. And it just felt like everything was sad.

Speaker 3 And I was chasing this dream that didn't seem like it was possible to happen because

Speaker 3 whoever hears of someone having their big break after 40.

Speaker 3 And now that I had a break after 40, I've heard of a lot of people. I just didn't do the research properly.
But

Speaker 3 I did feel like I had wasted my life and all I had to show for it was,

Speaker 3 you know, credit card bills and nothing else.

Speaker 2 I want to ask you about your mother because she sounds like such a wonderful person. She died in

Speaker 2 2016?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And like when you were growing up and you were being bullied, like she knew that you were gay, but she never said anything.

Speaker 2 And she actually went to a gay pastor

Speaker 2 and said, you know, what should I do? Should I say something?

Speaker 2 And he said, no, you have to let your son bring it up. Don't bring it up yourself.

Speaker 2 Was that the right advice, do you think?

Speaker 3 I do. I really do.
I think I would have been defensive if she she had said something.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 I had been trying to do it for several months,

Speaker 3 so maybe that would have been the time to have done it.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I think that pastor was right. I think you can't drag someone out of the closet.
You have to let them open the door themselves. And the big takeaway from me was that she had done

Speaker 3 all of this research, which is so her. I mean, it's funny, but it's also beautiful, and it makes me feel so loved that she had

Speaker 3 done all of this work to make me feel loved and safe. And I'm so grateful for

Speaker 3 having her, because I don't think I would have survived having

Speaker 3 my school journey and also not having a safe home. It would have been too much.

Speaker 2 Well, we need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Jeff Hiller.

Speaker 2 He's nominated for an MA for his performance in the HBO series Somebody Somewhere. His new memoir is called Actress of a Certain Age.
We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 I want to ask you about a couple of health issues and how they affect you as an actor. Do you mind if I bring it up? Because you talk about it in the book.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's fine.

Speaker 2 So you have, and this is a mouthful, frontal fibrosing alopecia.

Speaker 3 Oh, you nailed it.

Speaker 2 And morphia. Would you describe what they are?

Speaker 3 Sure. Morphea is,

Speaker 3 as I understand it,

Speaker 3 I'm not a rheumatologist, but as I understand it, it's when your immune system thinks that the healthy layer of fat underneath your epidermis is bad and it attacks it and eats it away and then it causes your skin to scar.

Speaker 3 And then frontal fibrosing alopecia is,

Speaker 3 you know, I think we all know what alopecia is, just hair loss.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 I guess on your frontal lobe,

Speaker 3 it's like my eyebrows, I have no beard, and I have a large chunk of hair missing on the top of my head from that.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 and you have some like brown marks on

Speaker 2 your chest, and the scarring. Yeah, so if you're shirtless in a scene, the makeup people really have to go to work.

Speaker 3 Oh, boy. And they don't like it.
They don't like it. And I don't blame them.
It's a lot of work.

Speaker 2 So, how is it affecting both your self-image

Speaker 2 and your career?

Speaker 3 Well, with my career, it's more about

Speaker 3 it's things like that. With,

Speaker 3 you know, in the hair and makeup trailer, you really have to go in and be like, I'm really sorry, but I have to put this little piece of hair in my head or I look

Speaker 3 strange.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 201, people have been so supportive and

Speaker 3 kind. And

Speaker 3 I think it bonds us immediately.

Speaker 3 but also

Speaker 3 you know sometimes you get cast as the person who takes their shirt off and

Speaker 3 whenever an actor has their shirt off it's either because you want to look at them and be like wow they are hot or it's to be like oh my gosh they're so not hot

Speaker 3 and so

Speaker 3 I think in that sense they want to just see you sort of be jiggly They don't want to be like, wait, what are those things? You know?

Speaker 3 So I think

Speaker 3 it's hurt in that sense, but it's also like, do I really want those roles where I'm like, lack of me jiggle?

Speaker 3 Probably not. So in that sense, I guess there's definitely been more than one commercial where I was not cast because you had to take your shirt off in the audition.

Speaker 3 And I could tell them that they were like, huh, what is that?

Speaker 3 But then self-image wise, it's just one more reason that I'm. uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 One more reason that when I go to the beach, I'm like, oh, God, I'm not going to to explain this to people. That sort of a thing.

Speaker 3 And then, you know, you hope you don't go in the beach and your fake hair flows away in the ocean.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 So I have to ask you about the cover of your book.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And the book is called Actress of a Certain Age. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 And you're pictured on it wearing irregular glasses, but over your head, you're wearing like a headscarf, not like an Islamic headscarf, but just like the kind of headscarf that women women wore a lot in like 1950s movies.

Speaker 3 Right, when they had to ride in a convertible. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 And I'll reference in particular here Imitation of Life with Lana Turner.

Speaker 2 Remember her wearing a lot of scarves like this.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 And yours is like, I have to say it's not an attractive scarf, if you don't mind me saying that. It's like,

Speaker 3 Terry, that was original Mez.

Speaker 3 I believe. Oh, really?

Speaker 2 Because it's like magenta and black in this, like, I don't know,

Speaker 3 loud pattern.

Speaker 2 But anyways, what were you trying to conjure? Was it like 1950s movies?

Speaker 3 I was trying to find a photo that looked, you know, the book is called Actress of a Certain Age, and I wanted something that looked

Speaker 3 glamorous, but also winky and campy. And

Speaker 3 I thought this picture fit the bill.

Speaker 2 So I have one last question for you.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 So this is going to make both of us uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 Oh my God, I love this preface.

Speaker 2 Okay, so on page 62 of your book,

Speaker 2 you write, once I was a guest on a podcast where the host tried to do that serious NPR intro voice that Terry Gross does on Fresh Air.

Speaker 2 And the host said, my guest, Jeff Hiller, is on a new show on HBO called Somebody Out There.

Speaker 2 Jeff, I loved Somebody Out There. I loved everything about Somebody Out There.
And of course the show is called Somebody Somewhere, not Somebody Out Out There.

Speaker 2 But I want to get to the

Speaker 2 serious NPR intro voice.

Speaker 2 Since you not only do improv, but you've taught improv, how can I make my intros sound less

Speaker 3 serious? Oh, don't you dare. Don't you dare.
It's part of the joy of listening to it. I would never want you to change it.

Speaker 3 You do that wonderful thing. You did it today, and I got goosebumps where you said, this is fresh air.

Speaker 3 It's like a little slide we go down. I hope I'm not making you self-conscious.
Oh, you're too far in. You already know your brand.

Speaker 3 But I love it. I would never want you to do it.
And that's why this podcaster was doing it, because

Speaker 3 they wanted to emulate you. They wanted to be

Speaker 3 the best.

Speaker 2 Oh, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 This was so much fun to do. Thank you so much for coming.

Speaker 3 Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Jeff Hiller is nominated for an Emmy for his performance in the HBO series Somebody Somewhere.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow on Fresh Air, singer, guitarist, and songwriter Charlie Crockett brings his guitar and plays some of his songs. He won an Americana Music Award and this year was nominated for a Grammy.

Speaker 2 He's about to tour with Leon Bridges and what's being billed as the Crooner and the Cowboy. Crockett's the cowboy.
He has a new album called Dollar a Day. I hope you'll join us.

Speaker 2 Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

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Speaker 1 Support for NPR and the following message come from HomeServe. Owning a home is full of surprises, and when something breaks, it can feel like the whole day unravels.

Speaker 1 HomeServe is ready to help, bringing peace of mind to 4.5 million homeowners nationwide. Plans start at just $4.99 a month.
Sign up today at homeeserve.com. Not available everywhere.

Speaker 1 Most plans range between $4.99 to $11.99 a month your first year. Terms apply on covered repairs.