The Ballad of Bridget Everett

From her wild cabaret act to her intimate HBO series, the actor hits all the right notes

- LISA TOZZI

BRIDGET EVERETT still has restaurant stress dreams. Never mind that she is a writer, star, executive producer, and the driving force behind Somebody Somewhere, the critically acclaimed, cult-favorite HBO show about a directionless woman who moves back to her hometown in middle age (Season Two premieres April 23). When Everett sleeps, it’s the screaming customers and missing orders from her days as a server that haunt her.

“It’s really weird, because of all the things that you could have a stress dream about, producing a television show — it’s so fucking stressful,” she says. “But what I dream about is ‘Where’s my fucking food?! Where’s my goddamned spicy tuna roll?!’ When you’re doing that for 25, 30 years, it’s in the bones.”

It’s a rainy, cold February evening, and we’re having vodka martinis and calamari at the Library bar in Manhattan’s East Village, right upstairs from Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. While Everett has had roles on Inside Amy Schumer and Lady Dynamite, and in movies like