Tim Bagley had no idea what St. Louis sushi was before he joined “Somebody Somewhere.” The oddball appetizer — pickle slathered in cream cheese and wrapped in ham — is his character Brad Schraeder’s signature dish and one of the first ways the show’s star duo Sam (Bridget Everett) and Joel (Jeff Hiller) get to know him. The other comes before they taste it, at a voice recital where Brad inelegantly blasts through a recitation of Francesco Durante’s solfeggio “Danza danza fanciulla gentile."
As for Brad’s culinary coup, “The day that we shot that scene, I googled it and saw that it was a real thing, and it looked horrible to me, and it is,” he said.
But he also understands why something like that would make sense on a post-recital reception table in Manhattan, KS. “A lot of times in the Midwest they'll have food like that that’s just gross. And I grew up on that food, so I say that lovingly.”
“Anyway,” Bagley added, “I've never had it before or since. And that was really fun the way that they introduced my character: I'm responsible for giving them both explosive diarrhea. And how could that possibly work out in any way for anybody to be friends with me?”
If you love TV, especially comforting TV, Bagley is anything but a stranger. Long before he joined “Somebody Somewhere,” he appeared in classics such as “Coach,” “Wings” and “Seinfeld,” and had a recurring part in “Will & Grace” before stealing the show out from under Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda whenever he appeared on “Grace and Frankie.”
“Somebody Somewhere” and Brad are closer in temperament to who he truly is than the many gigantic personas he’s played in other shows. Brad is a gentle, prayerful man who wins Joel’s heart and ours by extension.
In the tender comedy’s third and final season, which premiered Sunday night, Joel and Brad have joined their lives and homes, creating some of the sweeter season premiere scenes in which they have barely-there conflicts over how to arrange their kitchen items. Elsewhere, Sam’s sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison) relaunches her life as a divorced, successful entrepreneur whose curse word throw pillows are an Etsy hit.
This inadvertently leaves Sam, who’s still grieving their sister’s death, alone to figure out how to move forward in life, and the first glimpse of her navigating this unexpected bout of loneliness is heartbreaking.
But “Somebody Somewhere” frames this grief as part of being alive, something Bagley appreciates. “This show is very hopeful about humanity and people, and it deals a lot with kindness.” This makes it unusual TV fare, Bagley adds, citing that HBO was also home to “Succession.”
“The things that people love usually are just horrible people behaving badly, and this is a very sweet, gentle, kind show that's all about possibilities and hope," he said. "That's something that we collectively need in our culture.”
In our conversation about the third season, Bagley spoke about the show's loving depiction of Brad's faith, how its stories capture its theme of growth and what it was like to sing again.
This interview transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Were you a fan of "Somebody Somewhere" before the script came to you?
I watched the show and loved it. It's absolutely my sensibility — it's funny, and it's very full of heart, all the things that I love in comedy. So I loved it instantly. And then I got a call … I didn't have to audition. It was a straight offer. They wanted to use me and I think initially it was just going to be three episodes, and then they just kept writing them.
People know you from so many different shows. This, I think, is going to be an interesting juxtaposition, to someone who remembers all the scene-stealing you did in “Grace and Frankie,” and your work in “The Perfect Couple.” There’s such dynamism and difference between those roles and this. And I'm wondering what you wanted to bring out in Brad that may resonate with you.
Oh, that's a good question. I think of myself as somebody who has climbed my own mountain, kind of figured everything out on my own, with some similar obstacles that Brad had. I just kind of quietly have been walking on this path for a very long time on my own, and I've had relationships and things like that.
But what I responded to [is], I noticed that Brad was somebody that was kind of climbing his own mountain — doing these voice lessons, knowing that he's not a great singer, but it makes him feel good to do it. I love that. Then also having the religious part. Back in the day before churches were really open and welcoming to LGBTQ people — before there was even LGBTQ, it was just gay people or lesbians, is what it was — I would leave the church once they would start talking about gays, homosexuals and murderers and pedophiles all in the same thing.
Eventually, I left, like, maybe six different churches, and I couldn't find one that supported gay people. And so I thought, OK, I'm going to do institutional religion, I'll have a private relationship with God. And that's still a part of my life. And so I really identified with that part of Brad too. There's a spiritual side to him that’s going to be unwavering, no matter what the Church says or does.
Does that make sense?
It makes absolute sense. When I spoke to Jeff [Hiller], he said it was very meaningful to have this story that is not just about a small town in the Midwest that's depicted in a way that you don't usually see, but also a place where there's a faith center that's all welcoming, and it isn't seen as an outlier. It's a natural part of the community's weave. And the thing that I loved about this season so much was seeing how Brad and Joel have to find a way to merge their lives. . . while figuring out what they want in terms of their spiritual paths.
Right. . . I just feel like it's a fully developed relationship between two gay men that includes spirituality. People that, at our age, are moving in together, and trying to figure out how to bring somebody into your life no matter what age you are can be tricky. And I can't even tell you what a thrill it is to play a fully realized gay character or a character that happens to be gay.
This season captures a different way of considering the show’s overarching theme of moving forward. At first, I thought it was “moving on,” but now I don't. I mean, the show itself is asking all of us to move on since it's ending. But I think about this being a show that debuted in the middle of a pandemic when everybody was retreating, and it opened up a different part of the world and showed sunshine and possibility.
You're somebody who has seen it since the beginning and became a part of it in the middle season. How do you think that this final season will leave us — and how did it leave you?
Well, everything is not tied up in a little bow. It left me kind of feeling like the continuum of life continues. It just kind of goes on, and who knows what's going to happen with these characters? Unless some other network picks us up or something. But it's just the continuum of life and how Bridget — who plays her role so beautifully, and it's just so heartbreaking – [shows] we all can grow. We can all learn, and no matter how old you are, you can continue to grow and be curious about life and, like you said, move forward. My hope is that people get encouraged to maybe take voice lessons, or maybe not be afraid to go on a date if you're a certain age, or, whatever it might be. To be open to what life has to offer you. No matter what age you are, you can continue learning and being curious and moving forward.
One of the things that Jeff said was that music is the unspoken other main character in the ensemble, which we see in the song that you perform this year. I know some things transform in the writing and then in the actual execution of the scene, and I'm curious to know what that was like for you.
You know, my character in season two’s second episode sings in front of people, and he's not real good, but, you know, I did it to the best of my ability. I knew that way they could see that Brad was not a great singer, but he was really serious about it.
Then Bridget kind of showed me how to sing something personal and my character had never really done that. How did I approach it? I learned the song, but then what I really wanted to do was I wanted to get everything that I needed in that moment off of Bridget and off of Jeff.
And I mean, I don't know if I should be saying this, but I listened to a specific song on my headphones before we shot the scene. That is a very optimistic song because I wanted it to not be sad for me, but to be really trying to show him how much I love [Joel], you know. And then to be with Bridget and to look into that beautiful face and have her giving me all this support and love, letting me know it's okay like . . . everything that I needed was kind of right there with those two. Does that make sense?
Yes. And now I want to know what song you were listening to. Unless that’s too personal.
Yes, sure. I hope that doesn't ruin it for people. But it was a song from Sounds of Blackness called “Optimistic.” It's just a beautiful, uplifting song about going through life and all the troubles and remaining optimistic and all the things that we have to be grateful for.
Why would you think that would ruin the surprise for people?
Because it's like telling people how the sausage is made.
But the sausage is good! We’re still going to eat the sausage. And now I’m going to go listen to Sounds of Blackness.
They're so good. To me that's one of my go-tos for any time I want to feel really good. Their catalog of music is so powerful and positive and uplifting, and I don't know, it gets me feeling connected. I didn't even tell Bridget Jeff or anybody. I've never told anybody what I was listening to beforehand, but it put me in the right frame of mind to be in that moment.
Was that intentional not telling them?
No, I just didn't tell them. It's like, sometimes actors like to have secrets of how they work. And to me, that was, you know, something that I didn't really want to tell them. I just knew that it was going to be the thing that put me in that moment, in a way that I wanted to be present.
I think that's one of the reasons that this series is so magical, because you can sense all that feeling. It translates into visuals very well.
You know, to me, the thing about acting is setting yourself up in the right circumstances. All you have to do is look into the face of the person and listen to what they're saying, and everything is just right there. Like Jeff, you know his face, he's so sweet and wonderful. And every time I look at his face, I fall in love with him.
New episodes of "Somebody Somewhere" debut 10:30 p.m. Sundays on HBO and stream on Max.
