Somebody Somewhere: Bridget Everett talks about how Manhattan and K-State impacted her hit show on HBO Max
Manhattan, Kansas, is practically a character on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, which stars Little Apple native Bridget Everett as Sam, a woman in her 40s trying
to find happiness.
Each episode features cutaway shots of local shops and businesses and the characters
often sport Manhattan and K-State clothing. Though Sam does wear a University of Kansas
shirt in the first season, you’ll still see plenty of purple throughout the show.
“We want to have the purple, we want to see the signs of the town,” Everett said.
“In season two, we have the fight song, you just want to feel it even though we're
not actually shooting there. We want to do as much as we can to get the feeling of
it because it's such a great place.”
Season two of Somebody Somewhere premieres April 23, 2023. Season one is streaming on HBO Max.
K-Stater editor Tim Schrag ’12 interviewed Everett ahead of the season two premiere. Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Schrag: It feels like you accurately represented Kansas with your show. Was that intentional?
Everett: Thank you. I appreciate that. So in season one we wanted to have Coach Coop
because it feels like football is such a huge part of the fabric of the society there,
the community. There was no point ever where we wanted to make fun of anything in
Kansas. We just want to have people living there. Show the different kinds of people
living there.
You know, when I was home for Bridget Everett Day it was really cool. I was down in
City Park by Johnny Kaw and old teachers and friends came by but also you know, a
lot of members of the queer community and all different walks of life and everybody
kept saying the same thing. They just said “thank you” and they thought we got it
right. And it's a really big part of, like, every conversation. I'm like, “well, that
feels Kansas or that doesn't feel Kansas.” I haven't lived there for a long time but
I do come back a fair bit and my mom still lives there and my brother still lives
there. If I ever have any questions, Brad — he’s my eldest brother who runs the Hilton
Garden Inn — I text him. I'm like, “Can you snap a picture of your tennis shoes?”
Because I want to show the shoes that people walk in. I know that seems silly, but
you really want to get that kind of thing right.
Can you talk a little bit about if you had any K-State memories growing up?
One thing is I was on the swim team. So, I would have swim practice every day at the Natatorium. I used to sometimes skip swim practice — go over to the Union, go bowling, you know, eat treats. We played football at the Old Stadium on Thanksgiving. I grew up on Fairview so very close to campus. So, I was always there, always down in Aggieville. I dated a couple of guys from K-State. It was just like a big part of life. I grew up in the ’80s. So let's just say they used to let you in for free at halftime for the football games. It wasn't the sports dynasty that it is today.
So when you were coming up with Somebody Somewhere, did you anticipate the college town being as big a role as it's been?
Well, originally, our showrunners Paul [Thureen] and Hannah [Bos] were the ones that pitched the idea of doing a show set in Kansas and it was called Emporia. And we took a trip to Emporia. And we drove through with Carolyn Strauss, another one of our producers. And I was like, “Well, we know we're this close, might as well go see Manhattan.” And to be honest, I was scared about doing a Manhattan show because I didn't want to [mess] it up. I didn't want to disappoint the people that I know that live there. But when we came into Manhattan it became very clear. It's like that's where the history is. That's where the connection is. There's Fort Riley. There's Aggieville. There's downtown. There's the college. There's just so much to pull from even though sometimes it's very subtle.
Photo credit: Sandy Morris/HBO