Gillian Jacobs

Early life

Jacobs was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents, Martina Magenau Jacobs and William F. Jacobs Jr., work respectively in alumni relations at Carnegie Mellon University and as an investment banker. She was raised in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Jacobs was raised by her mother. Her family owned the Erie Brewing Company in Erie, Pennsylvania, where her grandfather, John Martin Magenau Jr., served as President and CEO until it closed in 1978.

Jacobs began studying acting at the age of eight, and attended acting classes on Saturdays at the Pittsburgh Playhouse while growing up. She performed with the Pittsburgh Public Theater, where she was a perennial contender in the Public's Shakespeare Monologue Contest, leading her to be cast as Titania in its production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

After graduating from Mt. Lebanon High School in 2000, Jacobs moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2004.

Career

Jacobs' first acting role came as Adele Congreve on the television series The Book of Daniel. Although she played Kim in the pilot of Traveler, the role was given to Pascale Hutton when ABC acquired the series. Jacobs subsequently made guest appearances on Fringe and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In 2006, she starred in an Off-Off-Broadway production of Chris Denham's cagelove. While overall critical reaction to the play was negative, Jacobs earned praise in several reviews. The New York Times advised readers to "remember the name of Gillian Jacobs, a stunning Juilliard graduate who has the glow of a star in the making".

Jacobs has appeared in theatrical productions such as The Fabulous Life of a Size Zero (2007), A Feminine Ending (2007), and The Little Flower of East Orange (2008). In March 2009, Jacobs joined the cast of the NBC single-camera comedy series Community as Britta Perry, a high school dropout who aspires to become a psychologist. Her film work includes Blackbird (2007), Choke (2008), Gardens of the Night (2008), The Box (2009), Revenge for Jolly! (2012), Bad Milo! (2013), Walk of Shame (2014), The Lookalike (2014), Life Partners (2014), Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), Don't Think Twice (2016), and Brother Nature (2016). Jacobs also provided the voice of the character Sta'abi in the Nickelodeon series Monsters vs. Aliens. Community was canceled by NBC on May 9, 2014, and later that month, it was reported that Jacobs had landed a recurring role as Mimi-Rose Howard in the fourth season of the HBO series Girls.

In June 2014, Yahoo! Screen picked up Community for a sixth season. It was announced on September 16, 2014 that Jacobs had been cast to star as Mickey in the Netflix original comedy series Love, which premiered in February 19, 2016.

Jacobs directed the 2015 documentary short The Queen of Code about computer scientist and United States Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper. Also in 2015 she co-starred in the thriller film Visions with Jim Parsons, Isla Fisher and Anson Mount.

Personal life

Jacobs is a teetotaler. She says she made a choice while young to never have an alcoholic beverage or do drugs. She says her father is an addict, and together with the cautionary tale in the young adult novel Go Ask Alice, about a 15-year-old drug addict, she became fearful of ruining her life the same way.