Lifestyle
'Somebody Somewhere' is about finding your people: Here’s how Bridget Everett found hers
Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett star as Joel and Sam in Somebody Somewhere.
HBO
hide caption
toggle caption
HBO
Comic, actor and cabaret singer Bridget Everett grew up in Manhattan. No, not the Big Apple, the “Little Apple” — that is Manhattan in Kansas. Though she had friends, Everett didn’t feel like she fit in; she says didn’t share the “traditional values” that seemed to dominate her conservative community.
“I had kind of a blue sense of humor, and I was always getting in trouble for doing something naughty — not keg parties and whatnot, but from my mouth,” Everett says. “I just felt like [Kansas] wasn’t where I was supposed to be.”
After studying music and opera at Arizona State University, Everett made her way to New York City. One of the first people she met was Murray Hill, a comedian and drag king performer. Something clicked: “I was like, my God, this is what I’ve been looking for. These are my people,” Everett says.
Everett spent years waiting tables while also developing a raunchy cabaret performance. She stars in the semi-autobiographical HBO series, Somebody Somewhere.
The show, which just began its third and final season, centers on a 40-something woman named Sam who returns home to Manhattan, Kan., to help care for her dying sister, Holly. The series begins about six months after Holly’s death, when Sam befriends Joel, a gay man in town who welcomes her into his community. Everett says the series was inspired, in part, by the death of her own sister.
“I was waiting tables at the time. I barely had two pennies to rub together and I couldn’t go see her at the end,” she says. “And I’ve kind of never forgiven myself for it. So this is a way to honor her in a way that I wasn’t able to before.”
Interview highlights
On Sam finding her person in Joel on Somebody Somewhere
I think for Sam, and it’s sort of central to the show, actually, is that for some people, romantic relationships aren’t the goal. Sam just wants to be loved and wants to have her person, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a romantic relationship. And I think that usually in TV and film or in theater or whatever … it’s about boy meets boy, boy meets girl, girl meets girl … that’s the ultimate, that people fall in love. But this is it for Sam. Joel is the person.
On the final season of Somebody Somewhere
The fact that we even got a pilot felt like a miracle. And every time we got greenlit for another season, it felt like a miracle. It’s a small show with a small audience on a small budget. And we have a very loyal and loving audience. … Behind the scenes, we wrote every season like it was a moment in time and never knowing when the show would be over. So this is the end of this iteration. But maybe we’ll do a movie one day. Maybe. Who knows what’s next? Because for me, the characters still live on and I know that their stories are not done.
On why she likes performing cabaret with no bra
My mom used to go to the grocery store in just her nightgown with no bra. And for as conservative and buttoned up as she was … she also had this kind of off-the-rails part about her. And that’s the part about her I loved. So I think the sort of lawlessness of her going to Food 4 Less, a grocery store, without her bra on, like I just loved that.
So now I go onstage without a bra and I just want people to not be so locked up. I want them to come in and to let go. And so I do everything I can to help them feel free, because when I grew up, I didn’t feel that way. And I guess I chased that feeling onstage. … Nothing’s meant to take itself too seriously. But what I do take seriously is making people feel good.
On her mother, a music teacher
My mother was a music teacher. She was a public school teacher, music teacher. And she also taught after-school lessons: violin, piano, guitar, everything. She did not teach me, but she insisted that we all take piano lessons. And what’s great about having a music teacher for a mother is that she thought that me wanting to be a singer was totally OK and she really supported it. … I remember I booked a festival in Australia and I called my mom and she said, “Look at that! You’re going across the world because of your singing.” … She loved [my voice]. … If I didn’t get the lead part in the musical, she thought I got robbed. And she loved my singing.
On her mother’s drinking
My mom’s drinking was honestly always out of control, but I just thought that that’s the way life was. And then when I was in college, or when I was living in Arizona, it really got bad. Like, she stopped going to work, she locked her doors, that kind of thing. And then my brother and sister came and got her and took her to rehab. So they were the ones who really took action. … When she went to rehab, she just stopped. She was like, “I lost the taste for it.” But her life was really out of control because of drinking. …
Even though she drank a lot, she made us laugh and spent so much time with us. She came to every single swim meet, every concert, sitting in the front row. And she was very supportive. She just drank way too much.
On what she learned by studying opera in college
You have to care for your voice. You have to warm up. You have to cool down. It’s like any other muscle. You want to stretch it, you want to care for it. I wish that I took care of my insides and the rest of my body the way that I care for my voice. I’m always drinking way too much water. I’m always running for the toilet. But I know that’s going to help my voice stay healthy. Because when I can’t sing, when I lose my voice, if I get a cold or for whatever reason … it really sends me into a spiral.
Lauren Krenzel and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
Ben Margot/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
-
Illinois3 minutes agoIllinois lawmakers approve statewide regulations for electric bikes, scooters, skateboards
-
Indiana6 minutes agoKelsey Mitchell eclipses 5,000 career points in Fever victory.
-
Iowa11 minutes agoDoctor fights sanctions, saying he’ll be ‘run out of practice’ by Iowa board
-
Kentucky21 minutes agoKentucky sees improvement in drought conditions
-
Louisiana26 minutes agoLouisiana Tech launches Center for Literacy and Learning to support students, educators
-
Maine33 minutes agoPilots aboard hydrogen balloon are attempting to cross Atlantic Ocean from Maine
-
Maryland36 minutes agoMaryland troopers attend high school graduation of student whose dad died in line of duty
-
Michigan41 minutes agoMichigan football beats out Alabama, Texas for 4-star DB Blake Jenkins
