ACTRESS OF A CERTAIN AGE

Queer actor and comedian Hiller reflects on his long road toward eventual success in Hollywood.

Most notable and recognizable for his work on the HBO series Somebody Somewhere, Hiller gets candid about the lean years prior to the upswing in his popularity and desirability as an actor. With passionate candor and humorous self-awareness, the author discusses the midlife crisis that made him consider purchasing a toupee and then seriously contend with an unhealthy relationship to food and his feelings of career underachievement and low self-esteem. As a “middle-aged homosexual,” Hiller, 49, confesses to being a voracious reader of Hollywood actress memoirs, adoring the salacious secrets they spill, and conceding that “there is only so much fighting it before you just have to lean in and admit that you can’t get enough of Candice Bergen talking about her life.” This love of celebrity autobiography lends itself to the book’s chapters, all named for bestselling celebrity memoirs (e.g., My Life So Far by Jane Fonda), and celebrates the pitfalls of an openly gay struggling improv comic and television actor who “clawed, scraped, and fought their way to the lower-middle rung of the ladder.” After having moved to Los Angeles in 2011, Hiller, armed with lofty career goals, soon realized the ill-fated struggle of endless auditions and the humiliation of low-paying bit parts, but his hysterical depiction of a Pilgrim in a Snickers commercial proved surprisingly lucrative. He describes the exasperation in trying for decades to score an agent to represent his talent, and the jobs he took in the meantime to make ends meet, like being the awkward “Naked Guy” standing on Manhattan’s bustling Fifth Avenue in the 2008 film Ghost Town. Elsewhere, Hiller is raw and real in his gushing gratefulness to actress Bridget Everett for recommending him for the career-uplifting role of Joel in Somebody Somewhere. Suffused with charm and sparkling real-life anecdotes on the grueling Hollywood machine, Hiller’s book is a must-read for any performer trying to make it in the entertainment industry.

A chatty, hilarious, effervescently entertaining autobiography anchored by self-deprecating humility and humanity.