Actress of a Certain Age
My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success
-
- €15.99
Publisher Description
A NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Emmy Award–winning actor Jeff Hiller, who shares his journey from growing up “profoundly gay” in 1980s Texas to his experiences as an inept social worker and how he clawed, scraped, and brawled to Hollywood’s lower middle-tier.
While struggling to find success as an actor and pay the bills, something accidentally happened to Jeff Hiller: he aged. And while it’s one thing to get older and rest on the laurels of success from the blood, sweat, and tears of your youth, it’s quite another to be old and have no laurels. At forty, stuck in a temp job making spreadsheets, the dream of becoming a star seemed out of reach. But after twenty-five years of guest roles on TV and performing improv in a grocery store basement, he finally struck gold with a breakout role on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, playing Joel—the kind of best friend everyone wishes they had.
In his book, Jeff dives into the grit and grind of climbing the Hollywood ladder. It’s a raw and often hilarious tale of the struggles, triumphs, and humiliations that shaped him into the wonderfully imperfect person he is today. With a mix of awkward charm and heartfelt honesty, Jeff shares his journey: growing up very Lutheran in Texas, navigating bullying as a gay kid, working as a social worker for unhoused youth and HIV prevention, and the endless ups and downs of being a struggling actor. For every one of us who have a dream that we’re chasing—and chasing, and chasing—his is a funny, moving, and utterly relatable story.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Jeff Hiller self-deprecatingly describes his success on the acclaimed series Somebody Somewhere as “lower-middle tier,” but his wonderfully funny memoir proves you don’t need A-list status to be a delightful source of pure wit and charm. He writes hilariously about the agonies of his childhood, including growing up gay in ’80s Texas. The story about his mom disastrously trying to help him dress like the “cool kids” had us laughing out loud. Oh, and then there was the time he ended up studying abroad in Namibia because he was too polite to say that he actually wanted to go to Ireland. But even more of the book is about Hiller’s decades as a struggling actor, with wild tales from his ludicrous day jobs and his long, bizarre string of bit parts (Why did Hollywood keep casting this 6'5" man as a flight attendant?). This is one of the most charming celebrity—okay, semi-celebrity—memoirs we’ve read lately.
