Jeff Hiller Confesses RuPaul Is the Celebrity He Most Wants to Meet at His First Emmys

Jeff Hiller Confesses RuPaul Is the Celebrity He Most Wants to Meet at His First Emmys

Jeff Hiller‘s first Emmy nomination for his three-season run as Joel on the HBO comedy Somebody Somewhere is still sinking in. “My husband, he’ll be like, ‘I’m getting a wave again,’ ” Hiller says. “It feels that way for me, too, where I’m like, ‘Wait, I get to go to L.A., I’m going to get to wear something fun.’ Somebody just told me they have swag suites. I was like, ‘What?!’ “

The semi-autobiographical series is inspired by the life of its star and executive producer, Bridget Everett, who portrays Sam Miller, a 40-something who returns to her conservative hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, to care for her dying sister. At a dead-end job, Sam befriends a former high school classmate she can barely remember— Joel — and the duo navigate aging parents and midlife breakups, with Joel encouraging a closed-off Sam to open up to the possibility of chosen family as he searches for a church where he feels at home as a gay Christian man. “I’m usually playing someone who’s sniffy and rude, and the best thing about Joel was that he smiled, that he was a happy and warm person,” says Hiller, who received the sole acting nod for the series.

“It would have been nice to recognize the incredible contribution that [Everett] made,” he says. “In addition to her writing skills, her fingerprints are all over that show.”

On Emmy night, Hiller’s looking forward to celebrating other first-time nominees. “Katherine LaNasa on The Pitt also got nominated, and she’s this person who’s been trying to be an actor for a zillion years, and now she’s on this crazy [successful] show, and she plays that role so beautifully,” he says. “She reached out to me over Instagram, and I was so touched by that.”

Hiller’s also excited by the chance to meet RuPaul Charles “so that I can become a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race,” he confesses.

Although Somebody Somewhere aired its final episode on Dec. 8, 2024, Hiller is still keeping Joel’s spirit with him. “It’s always so embarrassing when actors talk about their characters in the third person, but I do feel like Joel makes you want to be a better person,” he says. “He makes you want to have connection and community, and I’m taking that with me — not like I was anti-­connection before.”

Hiller, whose memoir, Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success, was published in June, is also open to what’s next. “I’m not quite at the point where I get to choose my role,” he admits. “But … I do really hope that I get to play another character where you see multiple levels of their personality instead of just, ‘You don’t have a reservation.’ ” 

This story appeared in the Aug. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.