HuluLet's be real: Some people truly understand and appreciate the comedic joy that is Hulu's Difficult People, and then there are those who just don't comprehend what Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner are doing with their series. But the people who do enjoy it—and tell her about it—rarely disappoint Klausner, she said. In fact, it's the "best part about being a 'cult' sensation," she told E! News in a phone interview.
Difficult People follows Julie Kessler (Klausner) and Billy Epstein (Eichner), struggling comics and actors, hustling for their big break. Like many beloved comedy characters before them, Julie and Billy are morally reprehensible on most occasions. Think of them as the devil we've all felt on our shoulders. The show is loosely based on Klausner and Eichner's experiences, but the characters are different from their real-life counterparts.
"The biggest difference between me and my character is I'm self-aware. I think deep down she and I are both a similar kind of asshole. I, at least, am aware of it and I try to not be, where she doesn't. And I also think that she's lazier than me and dumber than me. Basically me from 10 years ago," she said. "I think there's a point in everyone's career, not just show business, where you're kind of disappointed in yourself for not working harder on what you're doing. Instead of owning that, you blame the world around you. I think she is still in that place where she doesn't realize she could be doing more as well and I am not like that currently. I am way harder on myself than she is on herself."
This season, the characters Billy and Julie often get close to success, either professionally or personally. However, things go awry for spectacularly hilarious reasons, including accidentally appearing as a Nazi sympathizer and revealing their true identities by name-checking Liza Minnelli. The lead characters are charming, mean and often speak what you're probably thinking. Think Seinfeld with Curb Your Enthusiasm sensibilities mixed in. These two don't mince words by any means. Klausner will gladly take those comparisons.
"Oh, they're incredibly flattering. Especially the Curb Your Enthusiasm one because I idolize Larry David and I think he's a genius. I also sort of selfishly like that it's comparing me to a man and not sort of saying, ‘Oh, she's like this woman'...I think we're reaching a place—hopefully—where female artists can be judged as artists, as well as female artists [Laughs.], but there's always that point of comparison that always seems like a qualifier. In no way am I saying I don't want to be compared to other fabulous women, but every once in a while when somebody, I don't know, sort of liberates you from that particular little area, it just feels like a breakthrough. So that's kind of my favorite," she said.
Klausner said she grew up watching endless amounts of TV. "I didn't have any allowance for TV. It wasn't like, ‘You can only watch an hour a day,' there was pretty much no restriction and then we got cable and I was like, ‘Oh my god cable. I'm going to tape everything while I sleep.' It wasn't healthy, my childhood. We can discuss at another time," she joked. She recalled being particularly struck by The Larry Sanders Show while growing up and Lisa Kudrow's The Comeback later in life.
"The Comeback is one of my biggest influences and Billy is such a fan of the show as well. When that show came around my jaw was on the floor. It was so ahead of its time. I had never seen a lead female character that had so much—you can say unlikable, but for me she just had so much fun stuff to do as a comedian," she said. "Like, I can't believe she gets away with being able to be the asshole. That's every comedy performer's dream to have that opportunity to be the asshole, the idiot or both. That's what's fun. It's not fun to be the girl who stands aside and says, ‘Honey, that's crazy,' or doesn't participate. In television that's not fun to watch and a lot of people write women like that. They think they're doing us favors by representing us as intelligent, when in fact people are like, ‘Get her off the screen, I want to see the funny guy do funny things.'"
Klausner's character certainly gets to do things, from pitching a sketch show to becoming obsessed with Hoboken, New Jersey. The stakes are higher (and the guest stars bigger) for Billy and Julie this year. Don't expect a ton of character growth, but there are small changes afoot.
"I will say that going forward it's very important for our characters not to fight. It's very important for our characters to always know what the other is up to so that there's really no secrets. We're there to represent a very, very stable kind of romance and nobody wants to see best friends fight or at least our characters fight. At least that's what I believe. So, it's important for me to write Billy and Julie having small wins along the way. I'm not going to say that they don't grow and learn, but I think that as they progress throughout the course of their careers, they get different opportunities they can screw up in different ways," she said.
Those opportunities include a children's TV show and a role on a spinoff of The Affair. "We have these sort of slightly higher stakes than before, but with that brings its own series of challenges when you're dealing with characters that are probably not as emotionally mature as they should be as they get older," she said.
Difficult People season two premieres with two episodes streaming on Hulu on Tuesday, July 12.