Somebody Somewhere star Bridget Everett reveals how she ended up in the critically acclaimed HBO show

Somebody Somewhere, the very definition of an underdog show, might finally be getting its dues with two surprise Emmy nominations despite ending after a three-season run. Loosely autobiographical, the show chronicles the life of Sam Miller (played by Bridget Everett), who returns to her hometown to care for her ailing sister. After her death, Sam finds unlikely support in a secret performance group.

The Peabody Award-winning Somebody Somewhere is centered around people in their 40s who do not fit into the popular definition of central characters that a show follows. However, this unlikely combination seems to have hit the perfect notes on friendship. In a recent conversation with CBS News, Bridget Everett revealed exactly how she ended up being a part of this poignant show.

Bridget Everett on how she ended up as Sam Miller on HBO Max's Somebody Somewhere

In many ways, the HBO Max show Somebody Somewhere's Sam Miller is quite different from Bridget Everett. Everett has a larger-than-life personality. She is loud, and she is unapologetically herself. Her character, Sam Miller, is quiet, but she is vulnerable and underconfident, which is very different from Everett.

However, Somebody Somewhere is loosely autobiographical in the way that Everett found herself in karaoke. She connected with herself and everybody around her through singing. Getting up on the stage and letting herself be vulnerable, for her, was the ultimate creative and emotional outlet:

"My way of connecting with people is through singing. 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."

This creative outlet has allowed her to deal with life and the grief that comes with it in unimaginable ways. It allowed her to understand the grief that came with her father's, her mother's, her sister's, and her dog Poppy's deaths:

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!

It was this exact way of coping with life that led Bridget Everett to her character on Somebody Somewhere. Sam is a woman who's cynical, sad, and largely unhappy with life. She is struggling with loss and life, and she finds comfort and a sense of belonging in a place she never imagined, among people she never thought she'd connect with.

Everett knew exactly how to depict the sense of belonging that Sam finds in Somebody Somewhere with this group of people, so director Lennon Parham had the privilege to let Everett take over in the series finale, where she chooses to close out with Miley Cyrus' "The Climb," as she revealed in a conversation with Variety:

"You don’t have that many opportunities to shoot it because she’s giving a thousand percent, and you don’t want to ask her to do that multiple times. So really, it’s just about getting out of Bridget’s way and giving her the space, knowing that everything else is taken care of so she can fully go there."

This slice-of-life dramedy drew from Everett's coping mechanism to paint the journey of these people in their 40s. These people do not have the shiniest life, and they definitely don't have everything together. But they have each other, and to them, that is what matters most.

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