Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success
Actors biography, LGBTQ+ biography, Journals and memoirs
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
A humorous collection of autobiographical essays from comedian and Somebody Somewhere 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.