Touring Texas with ‘Somebody Somewhere’ star Jeff Hiller
| Austin, Texas
In 2008, Jeff Hiller got his first taste of fame – a starring role in a series of Snickers commercials that played during the NFL playoff games. He was the most popular parishioner at his church when he came home for Christmas that year.
Almost two decades later, he is back in the spotlight after his final season playing the sincere, small-town gay character Joel on “Somebody Somewhere,” a Peabody Award-winning TV series on Max. On a recent trip home he gets spotted all over the Lone Star State: looking for chicken stock at the H-E-B supermarket, picking up his dad’s favorite pralines at a legendary Mexican joint, and riding around town with his sister.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onActors often mine their pasts for material. On a recent trip to Texas, Jeff Hiller of “Somebody Somewhere” reflects on the humanity – and humor – in his.
The last few visits here have taken on a new meaning as he’s mined his Texas boyhood for material for his upcoming book, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty Year Trail to Overnight Success.” His upbringing and background inform his work. Comparisons to his most recent character are inevitable.
“I’m a lot like Joel,” he says, “but I think there’s a fundamental difference in someone who really wants to leave their hometown versus someone who stays.”
In 2008, Jeff Hiller got his first taste of fame – a starring role in a series of Snickers commercials that played during the NFL playoff games. He was the most popular parishioner at his church when he came home for Christmas that year. Former bullies, church ladies, and fellow theater kids crowded him in the fellowship room at coffee hour.
Almost two decades later, he is back in the spotlight after his final season playing the sincere, small-town gay character Joel on “Somebody Somewhere,” a Peabody Award-winning TV series that ended in December. On a recent trip home he gets spotted all over the Lone Star State: looking for chicken stock at the H-E-B supermarket, picking up his dad’s favorite pralines at a legendary Mexican joint, and riding around town with his sister.
The last few visits here have taken on a new meaning as he’s mined his Texas boyhood for material for his upcoming book, “Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty Year Trail to Overnight Success.” His upbringing and background inform his work. Comparisons to his most recent character are inevitable.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onActors often mine their pasts for material. On a recent trip to Texas, Jeff Hiller of “Somebody Somewhere” reflects on the humanity – and humor – in his.
“I’m a lot like Joel, but I think there’s a fundamental difference in someone who really wants to leave their hometown versus someone who stays,” says the comedian in an interview. “I am jovial. I do giggle like that. I did grow up religious. I do like a bawdy joke, but I wanted to perform as my main thing, not as a fun thing to do on a Thursday.”
“And I definitely don’t feel like my way is the better way,” he adds. “I sure would like that house.”
In 2023, the Peabody Awards, which recognize “Stories that matter,” applauded what they called the show’s pathos and hilarity. “Somebody Somewhere discovers moments of authentic tenderness in the painful absurdities of the human condition,” the Peabody website says. The series centers on Sam, a woman who has moved back to a Midwestern town after the death of her sister. Joel is her close friend.
Jeff Hiller’s early life in Texas
The actor chuckles recalling the youth director who unsuccessfully dissuaded his parents from letting him sign up for community theater, citing a “bad element there.” He does find it difficult to make sense of a congregation that ostracized him after his coming out – only to welcome him back when it got to meet TV’s Joel.
“But you can love people and recognize that their values are not the ones that you want to share,” says Mr. Hiller, reflecting on a moment in the show when a gay character makes peace with an ex-wife who bars him from their children.
The author’s life has also included a tight-knit group of friends, forged performing onstage at Texas Lutheran University. Longtime friend Shanon Keogh says they all recently had a reunion in Austin to catch Mr. Hiller’s stand-up routine. “I laughed so hard that my sides ached,” she says.
“I recently told him that he was like Monica to our version of ‘Friends,’” she says via email. “It was his genuine good nature, infectious sense of humor, and dedication to his faith and friends that drew me to him.”
Last March, when he helped clear out his parents’ old home and move his father into assisted living, he found an old gay magazine he purloined while on a 1989 family trip to New York City.
“I felt like that was some sort of a gift from my mom, and it made me very sad, but happy,” says Mr. Hiller of the magazine kept by his mother, who died in 2016. “It made me love my mom so much because she was this Christian person who really followed that whole Christian thing of, I’m really going to love my neighbor.”
His early years were spent in San Antonio – the family moved later to Austin. It was news to him that Christians disapproved of gay people when he was growing up in the Lutheran Church in the late 1980s. The church ladies, many of them friends of his mother’s, would help him identify a Bible verse, but also a cutting remark.
Under the painted ceiling of the local Alamo Café, the congregants would meet for queso, gossip, and analysis of the latest sitcom episodes. He credits these staunch Texas women with sharp wits and a “bless your heart” at the ready with his style of comedy.
“I actually have a lot more respect for the place,” Mr. Hiller says of where he grew up. “There is darkness, but it isn’t the top layer.”
“Somebody Somewhere” has been cathartic for Mr. Hiller. In the show’s third season, his character’s high school bully apologizes to him after Bible study at his partner’s church. Mr. Hiller never got an apology from the young men who chased him down the school hallways with slurs. But he did get props for an ad they got acquainted with tuning in to Sunday afternoon football.
“With this Snickers commercial, I did have a bully reach out and say he saw them,” shares Mr. Hiller. “I looked at his [Facebook] page, and I dunno, he was a dad; it was clear he really loved his kids. He had two little daughters, and then he felt more complex.”
In Mr. Hiller’s own life, he’s recently started mentoring a boy as part of a big brother program, and befriended an octogenarian.
Southern stuffing, mini-golf, and Taco Cabana
With Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” blaring on the car radio and a to-go box of crispy pralines in his lap, Mr. Hiller points to the many sites he remembers from a Texas childhood. They are now lost between new high-rises for tech workers, yet ever more relevant as he introduces himself to TV audiences warming to his Southern charm.
Mr. Hiller still relishes spending time with his sister and her family, preparing his mother’s Southern stuffing recipe, and revisiting a janky but classic mini-golf course together.
Before he leaves, he’ll wash her sheets, and discuss the highlights of his trip over coffee with her. He’ll also hit up the Taco Cabana drive-thru for a bean-and-cheese burrito on the way to the airport, part of his yearly ritual as he journeys back to the city where his Vitamix is plugged in.
“It made me feel proud,” says Mr. Hiller of the turned heads and congratulatory messages that arrive from fans over lunch with a reporter. “Proud because it was not easy. It was not easy just to move to New York from here.”
