‘Somebody Somewhere’ star Bridget Everett is thrilled you love her show as much as she does

There's a celebration happening in Manhattan, Kansas and it's all for Bridget Everett.

"They're making a donut for me. Manhattan Brewing Company is making a Bridget beer called 'Choir Practice.' And The Chef? They'll be there," Everett tells TODAY.com in a sit-down interview.

The hoopla is over Everett's HBO series "Somebody Somewhere," which wraps up its second season on Sunday, May 28.

Loosely based on Everett's life, the dramedy takes place in, yep, Manhattan, Kansas, her hometown. To honor their homegrown celebrity, there's going to be a viewing party for the last two episodes of the show.

"I feel like it's going to be emotional for me in light of just losing my mom," Everett says of her mother's recent death.

But even so, she says it all somehow makes sense in a life-imitates-art and art-imitates-life sort of way.

“It’s like, that’s kind of the show,” Everett explains. “That’s what we want to do. Real life is laughter and tears.”

"Somebody Somewhere" premiered in January of 2022 and has been gaining momentum with its “Schitt’s Creek” vibe combined with a raw realism that's laugh-out-loud funny in one moment and achingly sad the next.

The story follows Sam (Everett), a middle-aged woman paralyzed by the loss of her sister and stuck in a joyless existence until she reconnects with Joel (Jeff Hiller), an old high school classmate who takes her to "church."

From there, the story and characters unfold in a blend of joy, song and bittersweet dysfunction so true to life that, as clichéd as it sounds, it feels like you know the characters.

More than that? You want to. Which probably explains why an increasing number of fans are stopping Everett on the street to tell her how much they love the show.

"That is really gratifying, especially when you put so much of yourself into something," she tells TODAY.com. "There's a lot of me in the show, so I want them to like it, because I want them to like me too."

Everett's vulnerability is understandable given that so many aspects of the show closely mirror her own life, including her family. Like Sam, Everett lost a sister in 2008. And, most recently, her mom, Fredrica, died on May 5.

"I feel like I teeter between laughter and tears. I walk through life that way," Everett says and explains that when she was growing up, her family often dealt with pain and trauma with humor.

"My mom just died and the way that everybody was handling it was by laughing and making jokes. I was doing that. And then I'd cry," she says.

"They're both lifelines — the laughter and then the tears," Everett says. Like her character in "Somebody Somewhere," Everett, too, wasn't able to connect with her own feelings for a long period of her life.

"I can relate to Sam in that way. I felt really shut down and lonely for a long time and isolated. But a lot of it was sort of self-inflicted. And I think Sam has those same problems," Everett says.

Whether it's sitting in her underpants or belting out Laura Branigan's "Gloria" in the car, Everett's portrayal of Sam is utterly fearless and, more than that, vulnerable.

"Some of its embarrassing in a way. You're letting people see an ugly side of you or a side of you you wouldn't want people to see. But there's also parts of it that I feel are beautiful," she says.

"You have friends like Joel, who's undeniable. He's so open and charismatic, she can't deny him — but it's still scary for her."

What's not scary for Everett is letting it all hang out, figuratively as well as literally. A cabaret performer for many years, Everett's as much known for her singing as she is for her unabashed stage show, which she says helped prepare her for her role in "Somebody Somewhere."

"It's been the perfect training ground of the broad ends of the emotional spectrum," Everett says. "How freeing, going on a stage with no bra on and a plunging neckline when you're a plus-size middle-aged women, can be."

More than that, she says it helps the audience recognize that, in the end, it's "just a body" and what matters more is connecting with people on a deeper emotional level, while still having "a little fun" at the same time.

Which, if nothing else, perfectly sums up the essence of "Somebody Somewhere."

"I'm not going to just sit there and tell sad stories. You've got to do it in a way that engages people and that's through humor," she says.

"I call it 'slam, slam, tender.' You hit 'em over the head with some jams and then you come in with a tender moment and break their heart."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com