Talented and beautiful Gillian Jacobs is one of the busiest actors around these days. After saying goodbye to the character of Britta Perry following NBC’s cancellation of Dan Harmon’s Community after five seasons, the show was resurrected at the last minute by Yahoo! and is currently back in production (#sixseasonsandamovie). Jacobs is back on the set of Greendale Community College and as soon as that wraps she is set to star in a new Judd Apatow series for Netflix called Love with Paul Rust. She also has a recurring role on the fourth season of HBO’s Girls which premieres next month. On top of all that, Jacobs has appeared in a slew of indie films (I talked to her last year for the film Bad Milo! with Ken Marino). Her upcoming films include Mike Binder’s Black and White with Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer as well as Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
In Gillian’s latest film, Life Partners, directed by Susanna Fogel and written by Fogel and Joni Lefkowitz, she stars opposite Leighton Meester and Adam Brody. At 29, the most long-term relationship Sasha (Meester) and Paige (Jacobs) have ever been in is with each other, using their co-dependent friendship as an excuse not to venture out into the dating world alone. But when Paige meets nerdy Tim (Brody) and starts to get serious for the first time, the nature of their friendship begins to shift. Fearing she’s being cast aside, Sasha tries to keep their relationship the same, but does growing up also mean growing apart? Life Partners also stars Gabourey Sidibe, Mark Feuerstein, Abby Elliot, and Beth Dover.
I sat down with Gillian Jacobs to discuss Life Partners and her other current projects including a short documentary she’s directing about computer scientist and navy rear admiral Grace Hopper.
Danny Miller: What I love so much about your performance in this film and most of the roles that you play is that you never shy away from showing your characters’ flaws. Do you ever worry that people won’t “like” the character you’re playing?
Gillian Jacobs: Yes, I do! I think there are a lot of people who still don’t like Britta on Community so that gave me a tougher skin. She started out as sort of the straight man and then became the nagging voice of reason which is also difficult. What I finally realized is that some people are never going to like me but some people are going to like me because of those traits!
Is it ever like therapy when you take on a new role and have to look at what parts of that character resonate for you personally?
Absolutely — especially with this character in Life Partners. When I sat down with Susanna and Joni after I read the script I had to admit that I’ve had a lot of the issues that Paige has. I’m trying to work on them! To be honest, so many of the best moments of Life Partners or on Community or other things I’ve done happen when I see parts of myself coming through. In this movie, the fights I have with my mom, or when Adam calls me on always needing to be right or when I bang into Mark’s car — I’m afraid I can relate to all of those!
Which has to be a good sign since a narcissist would never make those connections to their characters.
It’s true. When I was a kid, my mom said it was like fighting with a lawyer because I’d say things like, “In point of fact ,you said on March 3rd, blah blah blah…” I learned early on that you can win arguments if you have a good memory but ultimately it’s annoying and alienating to the people around you! I also realized that the larger point in life is not to win arguments but to come to some kind of middle ground with the people you love who you want to stay in relationships with!
Those are great realizations. Paige gets there eventually.
I thought it was so great the way Susanna and Joni gave these characters dimensions and nuances without going so far that it becomes cartoonish. And they never took the easy way out. For example, I really like that Leighton’s character had strayed from her ambition to be a musician but we never get some showcase concert at the end of the movie where she gets signed by a record label.
Oh God, I just saw a movie where that happens! Leighton did those scenes so well where we really feel the awkwardness about not being where she thought she’d be at that point in her life.
I’ve had those moments so many times with friends and loved ones — the dreaded “What are you up to?” question. Before I did Community I lived in constant fear of that question.
It’s probably even more hideous for an actor. Like that other awful question you probably get: “What have I seen you in?”
Yes, I get that all the time. And sadly, for me I usually say, “Well, if you haven’t seen Community, probably nothing!”
Could you relate to Paige’s attempts to change the way her boyfriend dresses?
I’m sure I’ve fallen into that in past relationships. That’s kind of something that’s reinforced in our culture — women are told that they have to train men how to be in a relationship. You can mistakenly start thinking that it’s something you can and should do with a partner even though we know it’s never a good idea. I came from a family where my dad was the grammar police and my grandmother was always nagging about posture and other things. It’s hard not to pass that along!
In the movie, Adam’s character is desperately trying to make you watch The Big Lebowski, his favorite movie. Did you have any Big Lebowski episodes in your own life?
Many! For one thing, I don’t really know anything about sports.
Coming from Pittsburgh that must be considered on the verge of a criminal offense.
Completely. My poor dad tried so hard to get me into sports. He used take me to games in the dead of winter — I remember sitting in the bleachers freezing in my snow suit! He bought me footballs for my birthday and always told me I had a really great arm. I’d just think, “God, you are so deluded.” I was the least athletic child of all time.
Did you stay up to date with pop culture when you were a teenager?
Not at all! My mom and I were home watching things like Poirot and I, Claudius so to this day I have never seen a lot of the big seminal movies from when I was growing up. I’ve never seen Gremlins, I’ve never seen Die Hard. That also plays into my life on Community since we’re constantly making references to things that I’ve never seen. I also didn’t listen to pop music very much as a kid. I remember one pool party I went to where we played this game where we all had to sing pop tunes underwater and had to guess the song. I started crying because I didn’t know a single one of the top 40 hits! I guess I’ve always been a bit on the outside of culture.
Hey, in my house we grew up listening to showtunes, so you can imagine what an outcast I was.
Same here! I was singing along to Peter Pan Live on NBC last week and the people I was with had never heard any of the songs. I was like, “What do you MEAN you don’t know I Won’t Grow Up!’ How is that even possible?”
Speaking of Peter Pan, we grew up watching the Mary Martin TV version of that show along with the Lesley Ann Warren version of Cinderella that they showed every year. I just read that she’s going to play Britta’s mom on Community this season.
Yes, Cinderella herself — I loved her in that! She’s so great on our show. She and Martin Mull play my parents. They were also in Clue together which I also loved — I did see that one!
I can’t wait to see them together again. You have such a great chemistry with Leighton Meester in this film. Did you two already know each other?
No. I knew Adam because we’d been in movies together but I’d never even met Leighton. We had just a couple of rehearsals before we started shooting but as soon as we were on set I realized that it was going to work. Leighton is such a warm person and I think we bonded very quickly and naturally. But it’s certainly a risk doing something like this.
Right, what if you just despised each other on sight for some reason and you have to play lifelong friends?
It happens, believe me.
I love in this film how you’re straight and she’s gay but the idea of some kind of attraction between the two of you is never a thing. When I heard what the movie was about, I figured that would be an element.
I love that, too. Also the fact that the movie starts long after Leighton’s character has come out, that’s not an issue at all. That’s the great thing about having it written by Susanna and Joni about their own experiences without all those clichés. We get to see that Sasha is dealing with the fact that she’s making some unhealthy decisions in her relationships which is something that straight characters have to grapple with all the time in movies. You can see how we’re both great friends to each other and at times we’re terrible friends to each other — which is a lot more like real life!
It’s funny to think that not that long ago some straight actors were afraid to play gay characters because of the stigma that might have on their careers. Thank God that’s mostly a thing of the past. So when is your big lesbian role?
Well, there was one episode of Community where Brit Marling thought I was gay and I thought she was gay and we kissed but I think that’s it up to now, darn it.
I’m such a fan of Brit Marling and her films. I’ve talked to her a few times and I’m very impressed how the two of you have avoided letting your movie star looks define who you are in this town and what you do as actors. Was that a conscious decision on your part?
(Laughs.) I remember during my freshman year at Julliard I did this great play by Stephen Adly Guirgis called In Arabia We’d All Be Kings where I played a crackhead prostitute. I remember at the time thinking, “Oh, what an amazing detour for me to play a character like this, I’ll probably never do it again!” And then I graduated from college and that was all I played! When you start out like that, there’s not a lot of room for vanity. I did this movie Blackbird where my character is a runaway and then becomes a stripper and a drug addict who gets hepatitis and jaundice. I thought I’d be doing all these ingénue roles after school but it was stripper after prostitute after drug addict. I was always having to research what it was like to be on heroin or snort cocaine. I even had to ask friends what it feels like to be hung over since I don’t drink. These were not the roles to play if you are worried about how you look!
Can you imagine how boring it would be if that had been your main focus? Do you enjoy it nowadays when you have to fully glam out for movie premieres and things like that?
Well, I love clothing, I love discovering fashion designers that I like so I do enjoy that part of it. But there are times when I’m sitting there getting hair and makeup and I think, “Ugh, can’t we just take the picture now and be done with it?” I’m not so great in heels, my feet hurt, but it is fun to get glammed up every once in a while. It’s like playing a character.
I can’t believe how busy you are these days. What’s this documentary that you’re directing?
I’m very excited about that. It’s for this site called fivethirtyeight.com that Nate Silver started. I’m doing this short documentary about a woman named Grace Hopper who was one of the first computer programmers. She was at Harvard doing research on ballistic trajectories for missiles and solved this important mathematical problem that helped them build the A-bomb — she didn’t know what it was for until after the war. And then she went to work for one of the first commercial computer companies and worked on UNIVAC.
I remember that from the movie The Desk Set with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn!
Yes, that movie was actually sponsored by Hopper’s rival, IBM! I always loved that film. Hopper was the force behind the programming language COBOL which is still used today.
I can’t wait for your episodes of Girls. Does that show insist on a Mad Men-like shroud of secrecy?
I think so. I don’t want to get in trouble with Lena, so I can’t say much, but I loved doing it! The set of Girls is such a well-oiled machine, it was just blissful working on that show.
And now you’re back doing Community. When the show was cancelled last spring, did you have any idea it might get picked up again?
No, they didn’t tell us anything! It was the final day of our contracts when Yahoo! decided to bring it back. I always find out about my show on social media along with everyone else. I think Joel McHale gave us a heads-up that we were cancelled about five minutes before it hit the Internet but I think that was the only time I knew anything ahead of time. Back then I was told by many people that the show was definitely not coming back.
And I imagine you went through a certain amount of grieving about it.
Yes, totally! I cried when it was cancelled and got very sentimental about the idea of never working with those people again. And then I moved on which is the only choice you have in this business. So I was just as surprised as you when I read on Twitter that we were picked up!
Well, I can’t wait to see the next season and all of your upcoming movies. Do you have any acting goals that haven’t yet been realized? Something like playing an 18th century rotten-toothed English peasant woman?
Oh, that would be awesome! Unfortunately they don’t make so many of those these days.
There are a few — you just need to shove that greedy Winslet bitch out of the way.
(Laughs.) Can you make that the title of this interview?
Only if I can say that you said it!