Somebody Somewhere’s Tim Bagley Explains Brad’s Song to Joel

Somebody Somewhere has a history of turning musical performances into emotionally resonant scenes. Usually, those scenes focus on Bridget Everett’s Sam, whose brassy voice can punch a hole into any heart. But in this week’s episode, it’s the gentle, soft-spoken Brad, played by veteran actor Tim Bagley, who takes the spotlight at a housewarming party so he can serenade his partner, Joel. Initially so afraid to express himself that he lets Sam carry the tune instead, he eventually vocalizes, warbling with tears in his eyes: “Oh, the way you look at me / I can’t explain it but I know it’s love.”

It’s a moment that brims over with the natural humanity that makes Somebody Somewhere so special to watch. It also acts as a callback to a recital scene in season two, when Brad performed an aria with such committed fervor that audience members Sam and Joel — stars Everett and Jeff Hiller — could barely stifle their cackles. Now, in the final season of the series, Brad can put himself out there and be received by Joel and Sam with only warmth and support. “They were looking at me and lifting me up,” Bagley says of how he felt while shooting that sequence

Bagley has been in more TV shows than can possibly be listed here — Will & Grace, Grace and Frankie, and The Perfect Couple among them — but has rarely gotten to play a character whose background overlaps so tightly with his own. Like Brad, Bagley is a native Midwesterner and an openly gay man who struggled when he was younger to accept himself as he is. “I have a lot of things that are parallel with Brad that I can draw on that are deep for me,” he says. One can sense that from watching him, and from the way he describes his relationship with this role.

If I’m not mistaken, when you first signed on to Somebody Somewhere, you didn’t know that Brad would be a continuing character.
Yeah, it was going to be three episodes. Then they just kept writing for him.

Do you know what changed? 
I think when I sang that song in season two — Bridget asked me if I was a singer and I said, “No, I’m really not.” Then she said, “Well, there’s this aria that I would like for you to learn called ‘Danza, Danza, Fanciulla Gentile.’” 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. When I showed up, I said, “If it’s okay, I’d like to just do the whole song and then you can pick whatever bars you want to use.” I think we did it in a couple of takes. After that, I think they understood that I understood the tone and what’s funny about it.

It’s funny that this all started with a song considering that this week’s episode has another big musical moment for you. Why do you think Brad wants to write this song for Joel? 
I’m going to get emotional even thinking about it. I think he wants to thank him and let him know how grateful he is for him and all the little things that make a difference to him. One of the complications for me was that Brad had already sung publicly in front of people, and I thought, Okay, I have to really figure out why it’s hard for him to sing anything that has emotion connected to it. I have to be very connected to my feelings toward him and my gratitude toward him.

I also wondered if part of the reason that he gets Sam involved is to make it clear that she’s included in this. 
Initially in the first season that I did, they had a moment where Sam and Brad and Joel all connect in this bean field when we all had to go to the bathroom. We ended up cutting that out. At the end of the second season, I hadn’t really connected with Bridget’s character, Sam, so I think they did that intentionally. I never talked to them about it, but I think they got that out so that they could write something specific where we do connect. 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? He looked at me like he saw me long before anybody else saw me, and he saw me clearly.” The next thing I knew, she was like, “I think I’m going to sing the song, but I’m going to have you sing a little bit of it, and it’s going to be hard for you, but I want it to be about your love for him. Are you cool with that?” I said sure, because everything they write for me has been gold. It’s just so sweet and beautiful and aligned with the way my life is and how I navigate myself through the world. 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 try to keep myself raw. I listened to a very specific song and kept myself away from everybody so that I could be in this raw, emotional state.

May I ask what the song was?
It’s a song by Sounds of Blackness called “Optimistic.” Everything that Sounds of Blackness does, to me, is very inspirational, but it’s a song about optimism and gratitude and all that. I needed to keep myself in a very positive but emotional state so that when I showed up on the set, I could just kind of already be turning.

Had Jeff heard the song before or did he not hear it until you sang it? 
I think he didn’t, but I don’t know. He said that he wasn’t expecting me to be so emotional toward him and that it changed what he was planning on doing [in the scene]. I just remember looking into his face and he was so loving and wanting me to get through it and confused about why I was doing this. 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. I’m sure you could feel that. 
Absolutely, 110 percent. They were looking at me and lifting me up. Then Bridget’s face — I remember when I looked at her and said, “Thank you,” and the look on her face was so loving. And I said to our DP, “Did you get a clear shot of that look on her face?” It was, to me, so beautiful. It’s Bridget’s heart, right there.

That scene is a small moment, but it’s saying something so much bigger. This is a show that takes place in the Midwest. You have all those church ladies who are Brad’s friends, and he can stand up and profess his love for his partner in front of them. Especially at this particular moment, it feels necessary for people to see that this kind of support exists in places where we’re usually taught it does not. 
That’s right. I’m from the Midwest and the people from my community in Wisconsin, they’re all very supportive. The church ladies, the way that I look at it is they’re trying to connect. They’re doing the best they can. So I appreciate that effort and that love, even though for Joel, I think it’s irritating and kind of offensive.

When I was younger, it was a different time and I tried many different modalities not to be gay. Back then, it was just accepted fact that it was a lifestyle choice: You choose to be gay or not to be gay. So I was trying desperately to choose not to be gay. I have a lot of things that are parallel with Brad that I can draw on that are deep for me. All the church stuff — I grew up in a time when none of the churches were open to LGBTQ people. I walked out of several churches when they started preaching about homosexuality and pedophiles and murderers in the same breath. 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. Finally I had this female sex surrogate and she was like, “Imagine if the whole world is wrong and that God made you the way that you’re supposed to be?” It was that introduction to that new concept for me that helped me figure out how to move forward.

There are churches now in Los Angeles that are very welcoming, and churches in midwestern towns all over the country that have the rainbow flag outside saying, “We welcome you.” That was not in existence when I grew up.

You’ve played so many roles in your career. What about this particular show stands out for you, personally or professionally? 
A lot of times the way gay people were written, we were kind of like the clown, the joke, the buffoon. I can do all that, you know, and have done that. What I value about this job is that it’s a fully realized character — somebody who’s my age, who still feels the vulnerabilities of falling in love — that they write for straight people all the time. I’ve had wonderful experiences that I love and treasure, but there’s something about this show that requires me to go a little bit deeper.

Also, each one of these characters on the show, they’re 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 it’s so imperfect. To me, that is funny. For instance, in this episode, when Sam finds out that Joel told Brad about the money, that’s a violation to her friendship with Joel. When she’s driving in the car and you can see that she’s wanting to cry, but she keeps burping because she doesn’t feel well — to me, that’s so funny. It’s just a little moment, but it’s those kinds of things that are usually cut out of shows. I love that they just take their time with those little details in Somebody Somewhere.