Interview: Somebody, Somewhere's Jeff Hiller Shows Off His Basic Side at Joe's Pub

I have a confession to make: when I saw Jeff Hiller’s show Middle Aged Ingenue last August at Joe’s Pub, I had not yet seen Somebody, Somewhere, the HBO show in which he plays Joel, best friend of Sam, played by Bridget Everett. I think I was probably the only person at the sold-out show who hadn’t, judging by the crowd response when Hiller mentioned it. I saw the show completely blind on the recommendation of a friend with impeccable taste, who had been following Hiller since his improv days at UCB’s ASSSSCAT.

Hiller is charmingly unassuming and genuine on stage. He seemed completely humbled by the turn out he got from being on a cult hit HBO show, after over a decade as a struggling actor and improviser. I watched Somebody, Somewhere season 1  before getting on the phone with Hiller, and it’s easy to see why fans of the show flocked out to see him. Hiller’s character on the show is the kind of best friend anyone would want to have: supportive, caring, joyful, unself-conscious, and ready to believe in you even when you don’t believe in yourself. Somebody, Somewhere Season 3 will premiere this fall.

His new show, Jeff Hiller Is Basic, will be performed at Joe's Pub next week with one show August 12th and two on August 14th, at 7 and 9:30 pm. Only a handful of tickets are currently left for each of the three performances, and I cannot highly recommend enough that you get one of those remaining tickets before they vanish. Whatever the show develops into, Hiller's improv skills ensure that watching him work it out onstage will be magical.

We spoke about his continued tour of Middle Aged Ingenue, Hiller’s show about finally getting his breakout role at age 45 and everything that came before that, and his NYC debut of Jeff Hiller Is Basic. Read our conversation below.

[This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.]

You have a new show coming up at Joe's Pub. Do you want to tell me a bit about it?
Sure. It's called Jeff Hiller Is Basic, cause I am [laughs].

I did a version of it earlier called Designing Women Monologues. It's a look at gender and gender identity. And I did it before via this lens of this feminist 80s sitcom. But then the rights were hard to get. So I decided to redo it, with the same information and change it and make it better and funnier, with this new title, called Jeff Hiller Is Basic [Laughs]

What are you looking forward to about putting it on?
Well, do you want the real reason? The real reason is I look forward to not having this deadline looming over my head of having to do this show. But the more politic reason is that I love performing at Joe's Pub. I love doing standup. You know how it is. It's fun to do standup.

And I love... I kind of use my standup as a way to sort of process things in my brain. And that's definitely what this show is, too. I'm making it sound a lot more deep than it is. At the end of the day, it's just an hour of laughs. And I think our world needs an hour of laughs right now more than ever.

Yes, absolutely. And you're still touring with Middle Aged Ingenue?
I am, yes. And when Joe's Pub asked me this in like, February, they said, do you want to do Middle Aged Ingenue in August? And I was like, I'm going to be so sick of doing this show by then. Let's write a new show. And now I regret that choice. [Laughs]

Is it hard for you to write a new show and memorize it while you're still actively performing another hourlong show?
That's so interesting. I think it would be hard to rehearse and memorize a play or a musical while I was still doing it. Like, I think working in rep would be really hard for me. But for this, it's not so hard because I don't feel like I need to be word-perfect, because it's my words, so who's going to get mad?

I've also been doing sections of it at open mics around town. So it's kind of like muscle memory, a little bit. But yeah, I think it would be harder if I was doing eight shows a week and also rehearsing during the day for another thing. ...But I’d do it, if any casting director wants me to. [laughs]

How are you feeling about your acting career right now, with season 3 of Somebody, Somewhere coming out on HBO?
Well, I mean, that's the tragedy of being a performer, isn't it? You always want more, even when you have more than you've ever had. But I feel good. We shot [season 3] in the spring and it's going to come out sometime in the fall, I think. It's a really good season, and I'm excited about that.

But, you know, once the things in the can air you’re like, what's the next thing where I actually get to work, you know? [laughs] So I guess I’m there... which is also filled with gratitude.

I think Middle Aged Ingenue spoke really poignantly to that kind of feeling of that acting is kind of almost always insecure. Or for the majority of people it is.

Right.

It's been like about a year since you wrote that show. Do you feel any different with it, over the course of that year?

I mean, it's changed quite a bit since then because I've been doing it around the country and the more you do it, the more you're like, oh, actually, I don't need that part. But I think I am proud of the show, and I'm proud of the fact that it has a moment that's tender and it has some... It's honest. It's never like I'm going to say this as a joke, even though it's not really true about my feelings or whatever. I feel very, I don't know, authentic in my own emotional way, But I'm also a self-critic.

I mean, the show has the moment where I'm like, “I need to believe in myself,” and I'm still struggling with that. Like, I haven't been like, “I'm great, and that was wonderful. And I'm perfect.” It's a process, Rebecca. You seem very young. You've got a lot more time to change. I don't. [Laughs]

I make it sound like death’s knocking on the door. It's not quite, yet. [laughs]

This might be too broad of a question, but what would you like your next steps to be, or have you thought about that at all?
You mean like, career-wise, or like...

Yeah, or anything.
I'm going to have a baby. I don't know how! [Laughs]

Well, it took me so long to just admit that I am an artist and own that I'm an artist... that I write and that I act, and for so many years, I was afraid to tell people I was an actor because I still had a day job.

I mean, this is the neuroticism we talked about. But, I really feel like I’m owning that now. And so, I just want to continue creating and performing. I'd love to get back to the theater. I'd love to sell a TV show that I wrote, as well as get to act in.

And if HBO wants to give us a fourth season, I'd love that too. [Laughs]

Do you have a pilot that you're working on?
Yeah, multiple.

Do you want to share what any of them are about?
I have lots of different ones. The one that I'm working on now is very vaguely based on my years as a social worker before I was an actor, and sort of mining that knowledge that I have that maybe not everyone else does.

If you were to have a casting director knocking at your door with your ideal role or project, what would it be?

I'd love to do a play... not a musical, a play on Broadway with, like, three people, and I'm just the person who comes in for one scene in the middle and makes everyone laugh. And then I leave. [Laughs]

You have a lot going on –season three of Somebody, Somewhere coming up and this new show [Jeff Hiller Is Basic] and you're still touring Middle Aged Ingenue. What's been keeping you focused?

You know, I have a personal life. I have a nice dog and a nice cat, and they keep me grounded, and my husband keeps me grounded. And then I also... I wrote a book. Can you believe this? I wrote a book, a memoir sort of told through comedic essays. That's really why I wrote Middle Aged Ingenue, is because I just needed material for this book that I sold [laughs]. And then, of course, like, you can never... Anytime you try and write something cynically, you end up focusing on the show. But most of that material in a more expanded form did make it into the book.

And so, I've just been really working on the book, which doesn't come out till next June.

Is there anything else that you want to add?
Just that the show [Jeff Hiller Is Basic] is funny. I don't know why I made it sound like it was some sort of treatise. [Laughs] It's just a comedy.

It does seem like it's almost sold out. Are you thinking about adding another date if it does?
I don't know that I have any more free dates or that Joe's Pub has any more free spaces, but... maybe. I don't know. Let's see. Of course to me, it's like, it hasn’t sold out enough. So, at the moment, I don't think so, no. Buy your tickets now. [Laughs]

Right. Buy them now, there will not be any more.
Exactly. [laughs] I did tell myself just this afternoon, I was like, I’m never writing another show until I have it all lined up. [Laughs]

But it's going to be good. It's going to be good. [Laughs]
 

---

Tickets to Jeff Hiller Is Basic are available on Joe's Pub's website.

Follow Jeff Hiller on Instagram @boomboomhiller.

(Header photo credit: Bruce Glikas)

To post a comment, you must register and login.