When Jeff Hiller learned he was nominated for an Emmy this year, he only had one question: “For what?”
“Somebody Somewhere was off the air, so it was a surprise,” the actor tells Gold Derby. Hiller won his first Emmy last year for that cult comedy, and this year he was on the ballot for his performances on two Apple TV shows: Pluribus and Widow’s Bay. He earned a Best Drama Guest Actor nomination for the former, and is also now out there campaigning for the latter in Best Comedy Series.
Hiller was invited to announce the Emmy nominations with Liza Colón-Zayas, but his category wasn’t revealed during the broadcast. His manager later informed him he’d been nominated for the second year in a row, prompting him to remark, “In a weird way, it’s almost like, ‘OK, maybe the first one wasn’t a freak thing. Maybe I can sustain. Maybe I am a part of this business of show.’ In that way, it felt that I’m verging on [Sally Field’s] ‘You like me, you really like me‘ path. I wasn’t just an accident.”
As Larry, one of the “Others” on Pluribus who’s connected to the rest of humanity via a hive mind, it was “actually quite complicated” for Hiller to understand the role because he didn’t know the concept of the show at the time. His biggest questions were: “Do I need to mirror the other people? Do we speak in the same way? Do we have body languages or tics?”
The producers let him know that Larry’s body, voice, and cadence were “all still the same.” However, now he’d be using first-person plural pronouns. “More pronoun discussion!” Hiller chuckles.
Karolina Wydra plays an Other named Zosia, and while the performers briefly met on the set, they didn’t have a full conversation about their characters until they were at an awards show. “She was like, ‘Basically we’re the same person,'” Hiller recalls. “And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s true!’ We both got nominated for an award for playing the same person. Some trivia mind is out there being like, ‘I’m going to get [that answer right] on trivia night at the bar.'”
After working with Pluribus creator Vince Gilligan for the first time, Hiller really wants to “spend some time” inside the producer’s mind, saying, “When you look at his output, it’s first of all astounding just how successful he’s been, but also the storytelling that he does is so nuanced and rich. You never know who you’re rooting for and who you’re not rooting for. He’s not what you expect from someone who created Walter White. There’s no Heisenberg there.” He then jokes, “Or, maybe there is, and I just haven’t met him yet!”
As for series lead Rhea Seehorn, who plays Carol, Hiller immediately realized that she’s fully “present” and generous with her time. “She knows everybody’s name on set,” he reveals.
“She’s so aware of everything that’s going on. She spent three or four hours on a Sunday to rehearse with me and make sure I understood what this scene was about, because she felt that the scene was really important. And it was. It was when she finds out that the hive mind can’t lie, but she also has this dramatic moment where she finds that her wife thought her book wasn’t that good, and so she knew the importance of that scene.”
Not much is known about Larry’s life before the “Joining,” except that he was wearing biking gear. Hiller theorizes, “I imagine he was this middle-aged guy who’s trying to get back into shape, and he was maybe on his third bike ride.” Because the event happened at night, the actor suspects that Larry “was maybe having beers post-bike ride when it happened, and thankfully he was on the couch, and that’s what saved his life.”
Hiller is “pinching” himself after appearing on Pluribus, the most-nominated new drama, and Widow’s Bay, the most-nominated new comedy. “Honestly, it just feels so good to get to work,” he says. “It feels great. And at this time in this business, that’s a rarity.”
Widow’s Bay showrunner Katie Dippold revealed at Comic-Con that Hiller’s character, Dale, was originally going to be killed off in Season 1 of the horror comedy. But they all loved Hiller’s performance so much that they edited the story to keep the mayor’s assistant alive.
“I was in L.A. doing my book promo, and I was walking up Fountain [Avenue] on this really big high hill when she called and said, ‘Do you mind if we don’t kill you?’ And I was like, ‘No, I don’t mind if you don’t kill me,'” he recounts. “It felt super gratifying. People are constantly saying, ‘We hope you have more to do in Season 2.’ And I’m like, ‘You don’t get it: I got so much to do in Season 1 because I was supposed to be there for a day or two, and they just kept adding me into things.”
Hiller continues, “I would have been happy regardless. But the fact that now this show is so beloved, it’s so exciting that I get to go back — I think. You never know on a show like this! They might just open up [Season 2] and be like, ‘Poor Dale got eaten by the island.’
“Dale is pretty chill and not really one to do anything in his life. I don’t know this for a fact, but, in my mind, he’s been on the island his whole life.” That’s why, in Season 2, “I think he’s just going to go back to work and be like, ‘I did find out that the island eats people and we need to sacrifice 13 more of them; also, we need a new janitor.'”
Even though Widow’s Bay has moments of intense drama, the actor believes it’s quirky enough to compete in the comedy categories at the Emmys. “It’s equal parts horror and comedy, so I don’t think it’s category fraud at all,” he admits. “It doesn’t make sense to me to be in drama because we worked so hard and consciously and spoke about making it be terrifying, but also be genuinely hilarious.”
He originally met Dippold while writing sketch comedy in the basement of the Upright Citizens Brigade theater 20 years ago, “So, for me, it just feels like a no-brainer that it’s a comedy. And also, we wanted to make sure there were good laughs in every single episode.”
Hiller says his Emmy nomination for Pluribus is “the gift” that keeps on giving, and he hopes to win for one major reason: “Home design.” After all, a second trophy would look great as a bookend to the one he picked up last year for Somebody Somewhere.
