San Antonio native Jeff Hiller wins Emmy Award for comedic acting

Jeff Hiller won an Emmy for his work on the HBO dramedy series Somebody Somewhere. Credit: Courtesy Photo / HBO

San Antonio native Jeff Hiller bagged a surprise Emmy win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series on Sunday night, beating out well-known stars including Harrison Ford and Colman Domingo.

Hiller, a graduate of both Churchill High and Texas Lutheran University, won the recognition for his work on HBO dramedy series Somebody Somewhere, where he plays the gay and religious best friend of the show’s main character, who returns to her Kansas hometown following a mid-life crisis.

“I feel like I’m gonna cry because the past 25 years I’ve been like, ‘World, I wanna be an actor,’ and the world’s like, ‘Maybe computers,’” Hiller said in his acceptance speech, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The 47-year-old actor also thanked HBO for believing a show about unglamorous middle-aged characters, and he heaped praise on Somebody Somewhere‘s writers for crafting a series “about connecting and love in this time when compassion is seen as a weakness,” the trade publication also reports.

Hiller, a first-time nominee, was considered a long shot for the award, considering the competition included Shrinking‘s Harrison Ford, The Four Seasons‘ Colman Domingo, The Studio‘s Ike Barinholtz, The Bear‘s Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Saturday Night Live‘s Bowen Yang and Shrinking‘s Michael Urie.

Hiller, who’s openly gay, was a theater and choir kid at Churchill in the 1990s, and graduated from Seguin’s TLU in 1998. He intended to become a pastor when he enrolled in college, but his love for theater eventually overtook his interest in theology, Hiller told the Current in a 2023 interview.

“I think one of the main reasons I wanted to be a pastor is because I knew I would have a built-in audience once a week,” the actor joked.

While Somebody Somewhere propelled Hiller into a new level of visibility, it was far from his first TV role.

Hiller began performing and teaching improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City in 2021 and jumped to work on series including 30 Rock, Community, Broad City and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

He also appeared in the 2008 feature film Ghost Town opposite British comedian Ricky Gervais and landed a recurring role as a serial killer in 2022’s American Horror Story: NYC.

Hiller’s best-selling memoir Actress of a Certain Age: My Twenty-Year Trail to Overnight Success includes essays about his Alamo City upbringing and the challenges of being a gay man trying to build a career in Hollywood.

In his 2023 interview with the Current, Hiller admitted he “just tried to hide” through much of high school because of the tough time he faced as a “profoundly gay” teen.

“Well, I have friends who stayed [in San Antonio], and it seems like it’s a much more accepting and progressive place today,” Hiller said. “I think it was more about the time I grew up there. It was at the height of the AIDS epidemic — and me being obviously gay. There were lots of bullies and cruelties. I don’t think it’s specifically about San Antonio. I think it’s more about being different in 1988.”

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San Antonio native Jeff Hiller wins Emmy Award for comedic acting

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