‘Modern Love’: Bridget Everett Says A Best Friend Can Be Your Greatest Love

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stories of romantic love are everywhere, but the actor, singer and comedian Bridget Everett says that friendships deserve our attention, too. Onscreen and in everyday life. Last Fall, Everett appeared on Modern Love to talk about her HBO Original series “Somebody Somewhere,” which centers on a close friendship. Now she’s nominated for an Emmy Award for writing the show, along with Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen. In “Somebody Somewhere,” Everett stars as Sam, a woman struggling with grief and self-doubt after losing her sister. As Sam grows closer to her friend Joel — played by Jeff Hiller, an Outstanding Supporting Actor nominee — the future starts to look more bearable. In this episode of Modern Love, Everett tells Anna Martin why she’s looking for a friendship like the one Sam and Joel have on the show. She also reads a Modern Love essay called “When Your Greatest Romance Is a Friendship,” by Victor Lodato. Lodato was in his 40s when he fell into a platonic life partnership with an artist in her 80s, who lived across the street. In April 2024, Lodato published “Honey,” a novel inspired by Austin Brayfield, the friend he wrote about in his essay.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Natalie. All this summer, as you know, we've been bringing you episodes of Modern
0:06.3	Love. And this is the last week you'll hear Modern Love in the daily feed. But you can still find
0:12.3	new episodes of the show every week by subscribing to Modern Love at the links in our description,
0:17.8	something I highly recommend you do. But for now, we have Modern Love
0:22.9	Host Anna Martin here in the studio. Hey, Anna. Hey, Natalie. So tell me what's on the show this week.
0:29.5	So this week we're bringing back a conversation I really love. It's with Bridget Everett,
0:33.7	the star of the TV show, Somebody Somewhere. Have you seen that show? I have seen that show.
0:38.5	My wife actually made me watch that show, and we collectively decided that it is, I think,
0:43.4	the sweetest show of all time. Yeah, I mean, it's so sweet. This is a show that really focuses
0:49.1	on friendship. And when I talked to Bridget Everett, she said that she was tired of TV shows and movies mostly focusing on romantic relationships because she thinks that friendships can be just as powerful.
1:02.5	So true.
1:03.2	Yeah.
1:03.5	And that point of view certainly resonated clearly with you, with myself, with viewers.
1:09.1	And she's actually nominated for an Emmy this year
1:11.1	for her writing on the show alongside her co-writers.
1:13.2	And she really dove deep into the role
1:16.5	close friendship plays in her own life.
1:18.7	I will also say she did a little singing for us,
1:21.6	which is very special.
1:22.6	That is amazing.
1:24.1	Mm-hmm.
1:24.6	All right, Anna Martin, thank you for bringing us
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.