Bridget Everett on how she ended up as "Somebody Somewhere"

CBS News

6 days ago

Bridget Everett will try to tell you she's not a celebrity in Manhattan, Kansas, but don't believe her. She did grow up here, one of six kids, so there's that. "I just love that it still feels like small-town America," she said. "I come back quite a bit and I visit the same spots."
But it was when her HBO show "Somebody Somewhere" was set here in Manhattan, that Everett became a bon fide local legend.
The show follows Sam Miller (played by Everett), who moves back to her hometown in her 40s, trying to figure out herself, and life, after the death of her sister. Everett was a writer, producer, and lead actor in the semi-autobiographical series. "I was like, 'Is anybody going to watch this? This is not a cool show!'" she said. "You know, like, it's about friendship. I'm not a top model, you know? I don't want to speak for anybody else in the cast! But I think that's exactly kind of why it works."
Unlike her character on the show, who returns home to Manhattan, Kansas, Everett stayed in Manhattan, New York, for years, working mostly as a waitress and using, believe or not, karaoke as her main creative outlet.
"My way of connecting with people is through singing," she said. "It kind of always has been, and it's easier for me to unlock and kind of be who I really want to be when I'm singing.
Those karaoke performances led to her own, now-legendary cabaret shows at the famed Joe's Pub in New York. Everett's performances are sort of unlike anything you've seen, and so risqué we can't show you much of it here on "Sunday Morning."
Everett said, "What's interesting to me is, like, learning about people, and why am I up there with no bra and a low-cut thing with everything flying around? It's part of who I am, and I also kind of do it to understand myself, honestly. I like to talk about my family in this way because my family and I don't talk about it. I don't see a mental health care professional!"
And that's the amazing part: Everett's cabaret shows somehow end up being, in part anyway, a meditation on life and grief, including saying goodbye to her father, as well as the loss of her mother, sister, and her beloved dog, Poppy, whom she called the love of her life. "For a while I felt a little bit of shame saying that, because romantic love is kind of what most people aspire to," Everett said. "My life is driven in a different way. She just taught me how to love, and she just cracked my heart open in a way that, like, no other person could."
In fact, it was this side of Everett that HBO and the show's creators wanted to highlight – the way we can feel both strong and broken, hopeless and hopeful, all in the same moment.
Everett, who writes and performs multiple original songs on the show, says she got her love of music from her mother, Freddie. She also got her sense of humor from her mom, as well as her siblings, including Brock, Brian and Brad, who had given Bridget a piece of feedback: that her acting was improving. "I was being honest," Brad said. "Her acting, especially towards the end, I thought, was authentic. I even teared up on some of that, which is difficult to do when you know your sibling [is] acting. So, you need to separate who you know, and then see her in a character. And have it move you? I think it's a great compliment to her."
"Thank you," said Bridget. "You could have just said that in a text."
The HBO show features a number of Everett's actual friends and collaborators from New York, including Murray Hill, Mary Catherine Garrison, and, in a star turn, the just Emmy-nominated Jeff Hiller as her best friend, Joel.
Though HBO chose not to renew "Somebody Somewhere" for a fourth season, it did win a prestigious Peabody Award, and also picked up an Emmy nomination this season for writing for a comedy series.
Everett says the whole thing feels a little surreal: the journey from being somebody somewhere, to somebody who is right where she's supposed to be.
"Nothing will ever match this, and it couldn't, but that's okay," she said. "A lot of people don't get the opportunity to have a TV show, to live a life beyond their wildest dreams. And then to get to do it with the people I love? It's why it's taken so long for me to move on and kind of let go. But now I'm just trying to celebrate that I got to do it at all."
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Story produced by Aria Shavelson. Editor: Lauren Barnello.