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Somebody Somewherehas a history of turning musical performances into emotionally resonant scenes.
Its a moment that brims over with the natural humanity that makesSomebody Somewhereso special to watch.
One can sense that from watching him, and from the way he describes his relationship with this role.
Then they just kept writing for him.
I had no idea even how to learn it.
She said, You just have to learn, like, eight bars or something.
I thought it would be funniest if I really tried my hardest to make it sound good.
So I hired an opera coach and I learned the whole song.
I think we did it in a couple of takes.
After that, I think they understood that I understood the tone and whats funny about it.
I have to be very connected to my feelings toward him and my gratitude toward him.
We ended up cutting that out.
That definitely was all a part of it.
Was that song something that Bridget wrote?Yes.
We had a conversation on the phone once I had a partner who passed away.
We were together for ten years and he passed away.
She asked me what I loved about him.
And I said, Just the way he looked at me, you know?
Are you cool with that?
I said sure, because everything they write for me has been gold.
So she wrote the song, then she sent the song to me to learn.
I just sang it over and over and over.
On the day that we shot it, I had just set up all these circumstances for myself.
I give a shot to keep myself raw.
Then Bridget, she was just looking at me with such strength and confidence in me.
The way they were both looking at me, it really fed into everything in such a beautiful way.
You were talking earlier about feeling like your partner fully saw you.
In that scene, it seems like Joel and Sam are fully seeing Brad.
Im sure you could feel that.Absolutely, 110 percent.
They were looking at me and lifting me up.
And I said to our DP, Did you get a clear shot of that look on her face?
It was, to me, so beautiful.
Its Bridgets heart, right there.
That scene is a small moment, but its saying something so much bigger.
This is a show that takes place in the Midwest.
Im from the Midwest and the people from my community in Wisconsin, theyre all very supportive.
The church ladies, the way that I look at it is theyre trying to connect.
Theyre doing the best they can.
So I was trying desperately to choose not to be gay.
I went through what is called conversion therapy.
I went to a sex surrogate and I tried all these different modalities, not to be gay.
It was that introduction to that new concept for me that helped me figure out how to move forward.
That was not in existence when I grew up.
Youve played so many roles in your career.
I can do all that, you know, and have done that.
Also, each one of these characters on the show, theyre not perfect.
I mean, there are things about Brad that are just not good.
All that kind of stuff is so much fun to play because its so imperfect.
To me, that is funny.
Its just a little moment, but its those kinds of things that are usually cut out of shows.
I love that they just take their time with those little details inSomebody Somewhere.