Emmy-Nominated 'Somebody Somewhere' Star Jeff Hiller's Memoir

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

All Of It – Emmy-Nominated 'Somebody Somewhere' Star Jeff Hiller's Memoir
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Jeff Hiller
Date: September 12, 2025

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Overview

This episode features actor and comedian Jeff Hiller, Emmy-nominated for his role as Joel on HBO’s Peabody Award-winning show Somebody Somewhere. Jeff discusses his new memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My 20 Year Trail to Overnight Success, which explores his unique journey as an actor who fought his way to recognition, using humor and honesty to tackle topics like career struggles, coming out, and embracing imperfection. Host Alison Stewart engages Jeff in a vibrant, candid conversation about the realities of show business, personal authenticity, and the power of vulnerability.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Allure and Pitfalls of Celebrity Memoirs

• Jeff's Memoir Philosophy
  • Jeff loves celebrity memoirs because, “when they're famous, it's even more fun … they usually know other famous people and talk about them” (03:54).
  • He admits he hoped these memoirs would offer him “hope that somehow I would get to a place where I could also have enough success to be able to write a celebrity memoir” (04:10).
• What He Avoided
  • Jeff refused to write about “my grandparents. Nobody cares about your grandparents … I just want to hear about when you won that big gold statue” (04:28).
  • He worked intentionally to avoid cliché memoir tricks: “I said no to that movie and the movie turned out to be Titanic” (04:54).

Writing Process and Authenticity

• Book Structure
  • The memoir was built by “Frankenstein[ing]” various solo shows Jeff had performed, material he already knew made people laugh: “I already heard the laughs” (05:37).
• Unique Chapter Intros
  • Each chapter title references a celebrity memoir, with footnotes on when that person became internationally famous—a nod to Jeff's own ritual of comparing himself to others: “That's kind of a lesson of the book and my life too … If you’re comparing yourself all the time, you're gonna be despairing” (06:11).
• Quote:
  “This old queen didn’t get a break until 45 years old.” – Jeff Hiller (06:50)

Midlife Crisis, Self-Acceptance & Humor

• Cookie Rock Bottom

  • Jeff describes a memorable low point: “I was numbing myself with baked goods...Tate’s cookies from bodegas. There were three different bags…” (07:00).
  • This phase was linked to turning 40, his mother’s death, and an unfulfilled career—using humor, he details, “And what kind of cookies? That's important!” (07:14).

• Path to Self-Acceptance

  • Initial unhealthy coping mechanisms (“I’ll just get thin!”), but eventually developed gratitude for life: “Eventually it did lead to realizing I need to be grateful for life, just whatever life is” (08:08).

Self-Help, Vulnerability, and Owning Mistakes

• Favorite Authors

  • Cites Pema Chodron, Brené Brown, and Eckhart Tolle as helpful (08:47).
  • On Brené Brown: “You need to be vulnerable and you need to be honest about what’s going on in your life. And that's sort of how I've lived my whole life” (09:14).

• Book Cover Typo

  • Jeff embraces a typo in the book’s spine, turning it into a metaphor and social media gag:

    “Rather than deny it…I'm just owning it. It says actress of a satane age on the cover.”
    (09:30)

  • Listeners related, sharing their own embarrassing typos:

    “You just have to own it…that’s what life is like, right? You just gotta shrug and keep going.”
    (10:17)

Childhood, Coming Out, and Religious Roots

• Growing Up Gay in Texas

  • Describes growing up in Texas, “a wonderful place for a profoundly homosexual child to develop” (10:47), facing traumatic bullying.

• Supportive Parents

  • His mother quietly prepared for his coming out: “She had talked to pastors … and was really ready for me to say it. And finally, I did. And she said, ‘I know’” (11:26).
  • His dad was more reserved, but “made me feel welcomed and loved…even after coming out” (11:53).

• Coming Out in Young Adulthood

  • Recalls anticlimactic coming out to an acquaintance:

    “‘I am also gay.’ And he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yeah girl, no duh’” (12:32).

• Advice to Women on Dating

  • On “good guys”:

    “If you have that question, he isn’t. Go, run away, find a nice guy that you think is a little bit boring and marry him” (13:29).

Church, Theology, and the Performance Connection

• Church as Theater

  • “People wear robes and they go from speaking into singing…it’s a thin line between that and a Liberace concert” (13:50).

• Career Aspirations

  • Studied both theater and theology; wanted to be a pastor to “help people and be spiritual,” but left due to exclusionary church policies against openly gay pastors (14:52).

• Social Work Detour

  • Brief stint as a youth shelter worker; realized he’s “bad with conflict” and not suited to that field (15:41).

New York Hustle and The Actor’s Path

• Apartment Search Trials

  • “You really gotta wanna live here. And that’s why New Yorkers are cool people…” (16:47).
  • Classic NYC story: arriving at a West Village open house with cash in his shoes and encountering a mob for a tiny, overpriced studio (17:14).

• First Manhattan Home

  • Harlem, 142nd Street and St. Nicholas:

    “It was great. I think it's significantly more gentrified now” (17:43).

• Classic New York Experiences

  • Waiting in line for Shakespeare in the Park at 3 AM, witnessing everything from wild dogs to gunpoint robberies, but ultimately seeing Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline:

    “Once it happened…I'm still here 25 years later” (19:28).

Industry Wisdom and Advice

• Jeff’s Advice for Actors

  • “Don’t worry about the agent. The agent will come. Worry about the performing. ...Do not compare yourself with anyone else ... There isn’t one way to get an agent ... There are 1 million ways. A career is built on longevity...” (19:41).

• Enjoying the Process

  • Jeff learned to value auditioning for its own sake, not just outcomes:

    “I auditioned today and I didn’t book it, but I really loved what I did...And I do, I enjoy auditioning, unlike most actors” (20:33).

• Art is for Everyone

  • Encourages non-professional artists:

    “If you want to perform, all you need is, you know, the mirror” (21:06).

The Breakthrough

• Career-Defining Moment
  • On his big break:

    “Oh, Somebody Somewhere? Without a doubt…it's the first time I’ve been able to not have to temp or teach improv or do anything else” (21:48). “Every once in a while somebody will stop me and say, 'Your show meant so much to me' and that feels like a real accomplishment that I'm proud of.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This old queen didn’t get a break until 45 years old.”
  — Jeff Hiller (06:50)
• “Nobody cares about your grandparents … I just want to hear about when you won that big gold statue.”
  — Jeff Hiller (04:28)
• “Rather than deny it…I'm just owning it. It says actress of a satane age on the cover.”
  — Jeff Hiller (09:30)
• “If you have that question, he isn’t. Go, run away, find a nice guy that you think is a little bit boring and marry him.”
  — Jeff Hiller (13:29)
• “People wear robes and they go from speaking into singing…it’s a thin line between that and a Liberace concert.”
  — Jeff Hiller (13:50)
• “A career is built on longevity, not on making the top 30 comics under 30 lists.”
  — Jeff Hiller (19:41)
• “There isn’t an expiration date on performance.”
  — Jeff Hiller (19:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:54 – Jeff on the appeal and hopes of reading celebrity memoirs
• 04:28 – What he left out of his memoir (and why)
• 05:37 – Writing process (recycling live performance material)
• 06:11 – The perils of comparing yourself to others’ timelines
• 07:00 – Cookie-fueled rock-bottom and finding gratitude
• 08:47 – On self-help books and Brené Brown’s influence
• 09:30 – Embracing a book cover typo
• 10:47 – Childhood in Texas, coming out, and family support
• 13:29 – Advice to women dating dubious men
• 13:50 – Church as Jeff’s first taste of theater
• 14:52 – Why Jeff left his path to ministry
• 16:47 – Hard lessons from NYC apartment hunting
• 17:43 – First Harlem apartment and acclimating to NYC
• 19:28 – Surviving and loving classic New York oddities
• 19:41 – Career advice for actors and artists
• 20:33 – Learning to enjoy auditioning
• 21:48 – ‘Somebody Somewhere’ as a breakthrough

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Summary Tone

The tone is warm, self-deprecating, and honest, with Jeff blending humor, humility, and thoughtful insights. The conversation is candid but never bitter, focusing on embracing imperfection and persistence. It will resonate with artists, creatives, and anyone navigating the ups and downs of an unconventional path.

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Transcript

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The Emmys are this Sunday we're celebrating some of this year's Emmy nominated actors talking about their roles. We've talked to a lot of the nominees on the show, including actor Noah Wiley who starred in the HBO medical drama the Pit, Severance. Actors Tramell Tillman and Brit Lauer and Love on the Spectrum and Pee Wee as himself both won big at the Creative Arts Emmys last weekend. In this hour we'll hear from three actors and a writer who are all up for awards this Sunday, including Somebody Somewhere star Jeff Hiller and Jason Isaacs on his role in the latest edition of the White Lotus and actor Jenny Slate and co showrunner Kim Rosenstock on the dramatic comedy Dying for Sex. So let's get this started with Emmy nominated Somebody Somewhere star Jeff Hiller, who recently published a new memoir. Jeff Hiller is immediately recognizable as the best friend and truth broker Joel on the Peabody Award winning drama series Somebody Somewhere. Now he's up for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy series, but something you might not know about him is that he also loves memoirs. Seriously, Jeff has read a ton of them. So when he was offered a chance to write one, he was ready. And he knew all the traps. He didn't want to go with the woe is me. He didn't want to do the fake out moment. Instead, his book is full of laugh out loud, yes, LOL moments and then some really beautiful insights about his relationships coming out to his parents and his own health issues. He writes, this is a book about what it is like to be an actor who isn't famous. An actor who clawed, scraped and fought their way to the lower middle rung of the ladder. The book is titled Actress of a certain my 20 year trail to Overnight Success. Jeff Hiller joined me on all of it back in June. I started our conversation asking why he loves celebrity memoirs so much.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh, I just love, you know, I love people's stories just in general, but when they're famous, it's even more fun. Cause, you know, they usually know other famous people and talk about them. And I love it when they knew someone famous before they were famous. But if I'm being. What I was really looking for in those memoirs was hope that somehow I would get to a place where I could also have enough success to be able to write a celebrity memoir.

[Alison Stewart]

Well, as you were thinking about them, you have a list of do's and don'ts that you don't want in a celebrity memoir. What didn't you want to do?

[Jeff Hiller]

I didn't want to talk about my grandparents. Nobody cares about your grandparents. Everybody wants to talk about how their grandparents were in some country and then came here. And, you know, it's a beautiful story, but I just want to hear about when you won that big gold statue, do you know what I'm saying?

[Alison Stewart]

And you also didn't want the, like, the surprise hit, like, who would have known that I liked a car? Said Oprah. Who gave everybody a car? You know, it's like one of those sort of like bait and switches.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah, that's a cliche that I tried to avoid. The ones that are like, I said no to that movie and the movie turned out to be Titanic.

[Alison Stewart]

So what did you have in mind for your book? You had all these ideas, like, I don't want it to be like this. I want it to be. How did you want it to be?

[Jeff Hiller]

I wanted it to be authentic and I wanted it to be funny. And I think I landed on that. And I wanted to tell my real story and my honest story, but I also wanted lots of jokes.

[Alison Stewart]

Had you written anything before like this?

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah, this is sort of Cobbled together from several solo shows that I've done over the years. And so I Frankensteined them into a book.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, that's really smart. So you know what works for an audience.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yes, I already heard the laughs are. So I think at least if you have the same ears as a lot of people at Joe's Pub, I think you'll like it.

[Alison Stewart]

Each chapter of the book starts with, like, a celebrity quote.

[Jeff Hiller]

It's the title of a celebrity memoir.

[Alison Stewart]

Right. And then there's a little asterisk, and you have a little piece of information at the bottom, like, Alan's coming.

[Jeff Hiller]

Exactly. When they became internationally famous.

[Alison Stewart]

Why was that important to you?

[Jeff Hiller]

Because that's what I always did when I read celebrity memoir. I would find out when they got their big break, and then I'd get out my calculator and compare it to my age, and it was always a disappointment. And, you know, that's kind of a lesson of the book and of my life too, is that everybody's story is unique and special, and if you're comparing yourself all the time, you're gonna be despairing, and you start to lose hope and become a little cynical. And I don't want to live a life like that. So I'm. I'm allowing people to say, like, whoa, this old queen didn't get a break until 45 years old.

[Alison Stewart]

Well, you start with a midlife crisis. Actually, I do. It happened around the worst day was 2017. It involved a lot of cookies. All right, would you.

[Jeff Hiller]

I did have a rock bottom in which I was numbing myself with baked goods. Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

So what was going on that day that you decided to just. Just eat as many cookies as you could in one. And what kind of cookies?

[Jeff Hiller]

That's important. Oh, Tate's cookies from bodegas. There were three different bags, unfortunately, so there was multiple options. I do like a white chocolate macadamia nut and the chipless wonders. Have you ever had those? They're really good. It's just like a chocolate chip cookie without any chocolate chips. Anyway, I'm digressing here. The point is, I had turned 40, my mom was. Had just died, and I was feeling like, oh, my gosh, I live in a city that I can't afford. I am teaching improv and temping, and I want to be an actor, and I'm not, and I'm going to not feel that and instead taste this delicious sugar, butter, flour.

[Alison Stewart]

And when did you realize, upon eating that last cookie, like, this isn't gonna do it. This isn't Gonna do it for me.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh, I felt it on the first cookie, but yeah, but that was sort of a. It was a bit of a wake up call. Of course. Like my reaction to it was to be unhealthy and be like, instead I'll just get thin and that'll make me happy. Which is sort of ridiculous, but what are you gonna do? It was just how I was and eventually did lead to. To realizing I need to be grateful for life, just whatever life is.

[Alison Stewart]

You read some self help books that were helpful to you.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

Which ones were good and then which ones were sort of like meh, oh.

[Jeff Hiller]

We'Re gonna get going for the diss. I love my Pema children. I love my Brene Brown. I love my Eckhart Tolle or Tolle. There have been some that didn't do it for me, but they didn't register in my brain enough for me to call them out here on the radio.

[Alison Stewart]

What did you like about Brene Brown that's interesting?

[Jeff Hiller]

Well, I love what she says, which is you need to be vulnerable and you need to be honest about what's going on in your life. And that's sort of how I've lived my whole life. I mean, for instance, there is a typo on the COVID of my book.

[Alison Stewart]

I was gonna ask ya and rather.

[Jeff Hiller]

Than deny it or pretend it's not there or get out a sharpie and write an R on the side of every spine of my book, I'm just owning it. It says actress of a satane age on the COVID of my book.

[Alison Stewart]

It does. I'm showing them a satane age.

[Jeff Hiller]

It's a cetane age. Which I have learned. Cetane is a product that keeps nitrogen in your fertilizer. So I think that, I don't know, there's a metaphor there somewhere.

[Alison Stewart]

It's so great that you pointed out on your Instagram. I mean, and it's funny because the responses, people are one, they love you for doing that. They respond like, I had a typo in my resume that went to wherever. My book's got a ton of typos. I had a bad pie. Oh, it was terrible. And it made me feel so good like that somebody else had a same situation and you have to just kind of own it.

[Jeff Hiller]

You just have to own it and you know, what are you gonna do? I can't change it at this point. Literally, if you own order it, this is the book you will get. And so rather than, you know, having an environmental disaster where we re pulp books, we're just gonna somehow be okay with it. That's what life is like, right? You just gotta shrug and keep going.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Jeff Hiller. The name of his book is Actress of a Certain Age. Can you describe where you grew up?

[Jeff Hiller]

Yes, I grew up in Texas in the 1980s, a wonderful place for a profoundly homosexual child to develop. And, yeah, and, you know, it was a little difficult, but I also had a really great mom, and she really helped me through what I would call sort of traumatic bullying as a child.

[Alison Stewart]

It was interesting because when you came out to your mom, she'd already done a bunch of research, which was so sweet. Like, she just wanted to know more just in case this issue ever came up.

[Jeff Hiller]

She is a classic type a person, but also one who leads with compassion. And yes, she had talked to pastors at her church and read books and was really ready for me to say it. I just needed to say it. And finally I did. And she said, I know.

[Alison Stewart]

Your dad was a little quieter about it, but he wanted to just make sure. I think he write like he just wanted to make sure you had what you needed.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

What did that mean to you?

[Jeff Hiller]

You know, he's a man of very few words, always in life, not just around that subject. And he didn't have the language to say it's okay, but he showed it with his actions and just really made me feel welcomed and loved. And even after coming out to him.

[Alison Stewart]

And then you mention to somebody, you get all your energy up to say, I am also gay. And you write, he looked me in the eye and he said, yeah, girl, no duh.

[Jeff Hiller]

He was a waiter. I really thought. I thought I'd come out and all the gay people everywhere would embrace me and we would all, I don't know, join a utopian society. And, you know, it's not that way. It's more complicated than that.

[Alison Stewart]

It is more complicated than that. Here's a question. Did you feel that you had been.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

Playing straight the whole time?

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh, did I feel I had been? Yes. In retrospect, was I. No, no, no, no. The reviews were bad on my acting job of acting straight. Yeah.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

It was interesting, though, because. And you remind in the book you were a little bit of an undercover agent with straight guys and the way they talked about certain women.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

Any. Would you like to give any advice to women who are dealing with a certain kind of straight man and you got questions about them, you sort of think like, is this guy a good guy?

[Jeff Hiller]

He isn't. If you have that question. He isn't go, run away, find a nice guy that you think is a little bit boring and marry him.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

Based on what Jeff has heard, which you have to read about in the book, which we can't talk about, church was a big part of your life growing up.

[Jeff Hiller]

It was.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

And you say it was theatrical.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah. There was a lot of razzle dazzle in the Holy Spirit. Sure. I mean, you know, people wear robes and they go from speaking into singing. It's a thin line between that and a Liberace concert.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

Wait, tell me more about that.

[Jeff Hiller]

Well, I just loved all the smells and the bells. I loved lighting the candles, and I loved, you know, there is a performance of a pastor up in front of this congregation, which is just an audience. And, you know, my church had a big enough, you know, congregation that there were two services. So, you know, two show day, a matinee and an evening. You know, I knew how to get to a church. I didn't know how to get to be an actor on stage. And so I sort of gravitated to that performance element of the church. I also was, like, in love with God and felt, you know, the spirit and things like that.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. You majored in theology? Yes.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yes. Huh.

[Alison Stewart]

How did you decide to major in theology and when did acting take over for you?

[Jeff Hiller]

Well, I majored in theater and theology, and in fact, in the end, I only got a minor in theology because I didn't finish Hebrew. But I just want to be honest with you all, but I. I thought I wanted to be a pastor, and I really felt called. That's the language that the church uses. And I wanted to, you know, help people. And I also wanted to be spiritual. But, you know, they wouldn't at the time allow openly gay pastors to marry, whereas they would allow openly straight pastors to marry. And so I thought that was a little rude.

[Alison Stewart]

You also mentioned that you thought you really wanted to be able to help young people, but you were bad at it.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah, I was a social worker or, you know, I worked indirect care. I worked at a shelter for homeless youth, and I wanted to help. And I realized, you know, first of all, the system is kind of set up against people to be helped. But I also, I am bad with conflict. And, you know, just a teenager with a wonderful home life has a lot of conflict coursing through their system. So imagine if you'd been kicked out of your house by your parents, or if you had to run away, or if you had a drug or alcohol addiction. And so I wasn't really great at holding A case plan firm. And yeah, it's best that I left.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Jeff Hiller. The name of his book is Actress of a certain age. My 20 year trail to overnight Success. All right, you decide you're gonna be the actor. You're gonna move to New York. You have to find an apartment. After all of the apartment searching you do, what did you learn about New York? What did searching for an apartment teach you about New York?

[Jeff Hiller]

Well, practically pay for the broker. Impractically. You really gotta wanna live here. And that's why New Yorkers are cool people, because they want to live here and they do all the work to make it happen, which is impressive.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting because you describe, like, you think you've got this nailed. You've got like. I think it's $3,000 in your sock. Like you're gonna go to an open house.

[Jeff Hiller]

I had $1,500 in each shoe in.

[Alison Stewart]

Case I got one of them.

[Jeff Hiller]

Exactly.

[Alison Stewart]

Wouldn't look at the other one. But when you got there, you literally found out there wasn't enough money.

[Jeff Hiller]

No. And everyone else was there, like, offering even more money. And I went to an open house in the west village that over 200 people showed up for for a 250 square foot studio apartment with no closet.

[Alison Stewart]

So where did you. Where was your first apartment?

[Jeff Hiller]

It was in Harlem on 142nd street and St. Nicholas.

[Alison Stewart]

And what was living up there like?

[Jeff Hiller]

It was great. I think it's significantly more gentrified now.

[Alison Stewart]

Yes.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah. And there was at one point a man who said, it wasn't this hot till you came up here. And I was like, oh, yeah, this summer. And of course, he was actually talking about law enforcement. But I was young. I was young and naive. I had to have someone explain that.

[Alison Stewart]

To me in describing the book. You're living up in Harlem and you and your friend decide to have sort of a quintessential New York experience. You're gonna wait in line for Shakespeare in the Park. This starts at like 3 in the morning.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

You decide you're gonna wait in line.

[Jeff Hiller]

That was the aim. Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

You encounter everything possible that can happen to somebody in New York.

[Jeff Hiller]

We surely did. I saw a group of wild dogs. I know that doesn't make sense, but there was a group of wild dogs. People are like, that's not true. I swear to you, my friend Meredith will back me up. We saw two men being held up by gunpoint. And I very stupidly walked between the two men and the gun. Just hodey do, do we told a police officer downstairs and he went, okay. Then we got to the line at 3 in the morning and we were 180th in line and we found out there was another line on the east side of the park that was also waiting. And we just barely got in to see Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline in the Seagull in Shakespeare in the Park. Even though that was Chekhov.

[Alison Stewart]

That whole experience, did that ever make you wanna leave New York or did it make you wanna stay even more?

[Jeff Hiller]

Maybe like mid experience, I was a little like, maybe I should get out of here. But once it happened, it was like, I did that, I did that and I'm doing this and it made me want to stay all the more. I mean, I'm still here 25 years later.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

I'm going to read a piece of advice from your book, which is, which is really again, that part where it's very funny and then like really heartfelt, it says, so if you wanted an advice on how to get an agent, mine would be this. Don't worry about the agent. The agent will come. Worry about the performing. Find places to act. Make a web series with your friends. Take acting classes and perfect your craft. Try standup or improv. And most of all, do not compare yourself with anyone else. Even people who you've written memoirs. Especially those people. There isn't one way to get an agent or become a full time performer. There are 1 million ways. A career is built on longevity, not on making the top 30 comics under 30 lists. We aren't models, dancers, or professional athletes. There isn't an expiration date on performance.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

How long did it take you to reach that point? Because I know there are people who haven't reached that point yet.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, do as I say, not as I do. I think. I think there was a time when I was so focused on results instead of on process. And I'm still sometimes that way. But I also really take moments to think like, oh my gosh, okay, I auditioned today and I didn't book it, but I really loved what I did in the audition. So I'm gonna just enjoy that. And I do, I enjoy auditioning, unlike most actors.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Jeff Hiller]

Yeah. And I think that that's true for other people too. People who are artists, who aren't professional artists. You get to. If you want to paint, you can paint. If you want to perform, all you need is, you know, the mirror. And I think a lot of times we think, oh, we're not allowed to do that because I don't have an agent or I don't have a gallery, I don't have a, whatever, a radio show at 1 in New York City. But you can talk to anybody and be a great interviewer.

[Alison Stewart]

What do you consider?

[Jeff Hiller]

Did that get personal?

[Alison Stewart]

It got a little personal. What do you consider your big break when you think sit back and you think, yeah, this was my big break.

[Jeff Hiller]

Oh, somebody somewhere? Without a doubt. Yeah. Because even though I had done a lot before then, it's the first time I've been able to not have to temp or teach improv or do anything else. And also it's the first time that I've really felt people in the audience in great numbers connected to it and love it. I mean, I can walk down the street just fine, but every once in a while somebody will stop me and say, your show meant so much to me and that feels like a real accomplishment that I'm proud of.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with Emmy nominated Somebody Somewhere star Jeff Hiller about his memoir actress of a certain age, my 20 year trail to overnight success. In the latest season of the White Lotus, Emmy nominated actor Jason Isaacs plays a family patriarch whose world is crashing down. He joins us to discuss his role as Tim Ratliff working with Mike White and that scene.

[WNYC Host or Reporter]

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