CraveOnline: Does Juilliard train you for comedy?
Gillian Jacobs: No, not at all. They don’t really think much of comedy at Juilliard so no. It’s a classical dramatic training program. It’s preparing you for a life of Moliere and Chekhov and Shakespeare. It is not preparing you to work with an anal demon puppet, or really to sell a joke. I did one funny scene in my acting class my second year at Juilliard and I’d never really done comedy, my classmates were all laughing and I was kind of feeling good about myself for once and my teacher said, “Well, you can clearly do that so never bring in anything like that again.” So they did not encourage me to be a comedienne at all. It was really post Juilliard that I started to do comedic work.
And what was that? How did you discover that this was the way to go?
Well, it was something I wanted to do because you can only play a runaway drug-addicted street prostitute so many times before you feel like “I don’t ever want to work again.” So I was just desperate to do some comedy and then Dan Harmon came along, because truly no one had really hired me for it before. I auditioned for “Community” and he thought I was Britta. Every door that’s opened for me in the comedy world since then is a direct result of Dan having cast me on the show. So Dan Harmon. Get Dan Harmon as your comedic godfather is my only advice.
And Britta got funnier over the first season, and beyond, than she was originally. Did you develop that?
I think it was probably a combination of them figuring out what was funny about the character and me becoming more confident as a performer and probably those two kind of grew together, because she sort of started out as the voice of reason on the show which is not usually the most fun part. Jason Bateman does it so well on “Arrested Development” but it’s a tricky one to be the killjoy. Then they found a way to turn it in on itself and find her flaws and her shortcomings. Then I feel like I was figuring out what was funny about me, so I really feel like yeah, the character and I have come a long way.
What is it like on “Community” now with the group down to five?
It’s not down to five yet. Donald [Glover]’s still there. We’re on episode two, he’s doing five, so we have three more weeks with Donald and Jonathan Banks is joining us for 11, so we’re not down to five yet. It’s been a bumpy ride on “Community.” Everything that can happen to a television show has happened to us I think, short of cancellation at this point. So we’ve lost our creator, we’ve gained back our creator, we’ve had main characters leave. We’ve been on the air, we’ve been off the air, we’ve had full seasons, we’ve had half seasons. I think that the oral history of “Community” could possibly be a bestseller at this point. What has not happened to us?
Dan has talked about re-grounding the show versus the big theme episodes. Have you felt that in the first two you’ve shot so far?
Yes, yes, they have not been big conceptual episodes. They’ve been very character driven but very, very funny episodes and it’s so great to have Dan and Chris McKenna back and to be laughing hysterically on set with my favorite people to work with. I could almost get a little teary talking about it. It’s a really special job.
My favorite is a very big conceptual episode, “Digital Estate Planning.” Were you happy that they even found a way to work Britta’s feminism into a video game?
Of course, she’ll insert it everywhere. Women do have issues with video games. Britta’s not the only one to have feminist objections to video games. Maybe not to 8-bit video games as much as she does but that’s a real thing.
What are you playing in Hot Tub Time Machine 2?
I play Adam Scott’s girlfriend in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 so we are two new characters for the sequel. I was really happy to get a chance to work with Rob Corddry again, Clark Duke and Craig [Robinson] and Adam who I’ve never worked with before.
So you are a character in the future?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. [Sarcastically]
Rob said it’s 10 years in the future and Adam is the grown up son of John Cusack’s character.
Oh, okay.
So what is the future like?
What did Rob Corddry tell you?
He hasn’t talked about the future in detail so I’ll let you off the hook there.
Then I don’t know what I can tell you then. I don’t want to get in trouble.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
