Gillian Jacobs Relishes Her “Community” Service

Actress Gillian Jacobs has run the gamut of seedy roles during her career, from stripper to junkie to prostitute. Now, as one of the leads of the new NBC comedy, “Community,” she’s playing a college student struggling with Spanish class, a part she embraces as a welcome departure. “I was definitely looking to do something completely different from the roles I’ve been doing the last couple of years,” Jacobs admits. “I kept saying I wanted to do a comedy and I don’t think people quite believed that.”

Starring opposite “Talk Soup” host Joel McHale and comic legend Chevy Chase, the Pittsburgh native is relishing her time on her new show, especially working alongside a comic icon like Chevy Chase.

“He’s a legend,” Jacobs notes, “and everyone has grown up watching his movies. It’s really fun watching him doing this. It’s his first time doing a series. It’s really a treat.”

A Juilliard graduate, Jacobs confesses that not everybody is impressed by the school’s lofty reputation. “People have radically different impressions of what a Juilliard actor is going to be like. Some people think that you’re going to be the most brilliant actor they’ve ever seen, and some people have heard really negative things. I once had a casting director tell me they had to wash the stink of Juilliard off of me. But I do think it helped me get an agent and it helped me get in front of casting directors right after college, so I was very appreciative of that.” A fan of heavyweight actors like Gena Rowlands, Samantha Morton, Tilda Swinton, and Cate Blanchett, Jacobs took to acting instantly as a youth. “I loved the people,” she says, “just being in the theater, I liked everything about it.”

Soon to be seen in the thriller The Box opposite Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, and Frank Langella, the film, in theaters Novem­ber 6th, is directed by Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame.

With other independent films in the can awaiting distribution, Jacobs is excited about where she currently finds herself. “After I did a bunch of movies where I was either a stripper or a street prostitute, I definitely was trying to play something completely different from that, so I did this movie, Coach, with Hugh Dancy, where I play his ex-girlfriend who was this self-absorbed TV actress and that was much lighter. That’s a romantic comedy and it was a chance to do something different. And I did this film called No Names where I play a girl from a tiny town in the middle of Wisconsin. It’s a drama, but she’s certainly a girl that was closer to me. I try to have a diversity of projects and look for material that I find intriguing and exciting.”

In the midst of a promising career with a brand new TV series and feature film soon to be released, Jacobs doesn’t take any­thing for granted. An original member of the “Traveler” pilot, the lovely actress was replaced when the show aired and that sting has not been forgotten.

“When you go through that, and it happens to actors every single pilot season, you read about it, but once it happens to you, you don’t really forget that. You’re just always waiting for the axe to fall. But I actually felt really positive about “Community,” so I tried not to be too consumed with fear and anxiety. You never know until you show up on set, but I think everyone recognized that what we had in this cast was a really good thing.” ▼

“Community” premieres Thursday, Sep­tember 17th at 9:30pm on NBC.

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