PITTSBURGH — Gillian Jacobs' latest trio of projects are excellent examples of what living your best professional life looks like.
You can currently catch the 39-year-old Pittsburgh-area native as Chris Riley on HBO's "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty"; in movie theaters opposite Chris Pine in the action-thriller "The Contractor"; and on Disney+, where her documentary feature directorial debut, "More Than Robots," has been available since March 18.
She may have risen to fame playing the notoriously inept Britta Perry on the NBC sitcom "Community," but nobody can accuse her of Britta-ing her clearly thriving career.
"I feel like I'm able to pursue all these different avenues, whether it's directing documentaries or acting on a television show or being in different types of films than people might expect to see me in," Jacobs told the Post-Gazette. "I feel like I'm having a great time. I'm trying not to limit my own vision of myself."
Jacobs got an early start in Pittsburgh theater. She trained in acting and performed on local stages from elementary school on, at one point crossing paths with future "Community" writer Steve Basilone at a Pittsburgh Playhouse acting class. There's "an amazing amount of arts in Pittsburgh," she said, which is one of the reasons why she thinks so many budding thespians who get their start here end up becoming professional actors.
"Community" was her big break. Sure, she played a character whose name was used to describe making something fun seem decidedly uncool. But as she put it, the fact fans are still talking about a show that began in 2009 "means something went right."
"You just think something's a throwaway joke in one episode of a show," she said of Britta becoming a verb. "It's amazing to me. All of it is a testament to how much the show resonated with people, how closely people paid attention to the episodes, how they grabbed onto lines that we loved on set but had no idea people would still be repeating this many years later."
Since 'Community" ended in 2015, Jacobs has shown up everywhere from a guest spot on HBO's "Girls" to a starring role in the Netflix series "Love" to the 2016 film "Don't Think Twice" about a New York City improv troupe. She's back on HBO these days with "Winning Time," where she spends most of her screen time playing the supportive wife of Adrien Brody's Pat Riley, the legendary NBA coach and executive.
She admitted not knowing much about the NBA going into "Winning Time," but she has a reasonable excuse for that: "We don't have a basketball team in Pittsburgh."
"More Than Robots" came about as a result of the "The Queen of Code," a 2015 documentary short about computer scientist Grace Hopper that Jacobs directed for FiveThirtyEight's "Signals" series. That was her introduction to the world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which led her to more interviews in STEM and her discovery of the FIRST Robotics Competition, where high school students worldwide compete annually.
What struck her most about FIRST was "how kind and compassionate" everyone was. Each team is tasked with building a robot capable of holding its own against other such creations in what is essentially an entirely new sport. For Jacobs, though, that aspect wasn't as enticing as how much FIRST emphasizes teamwork, relationship-building and giving back to the community.
That last point became even more of the documentary's focus when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the 2020 FIRST season. Jacobs realized the real story was how the students reacted to such unprecedented adversity.
"The amazing thing to watch happen was that the kids started responding to the pandemic in a multitude of ways, just trying to use their skills and knowhow to help out their communities," she said. "It was incredible to witness them spontaneously doing that."
Jacobs appreciated how the students she interviewed would "smile very patiently at me" as they explained concepts that were mostly going over her head. That said, she left "More Than Robots" feeling like "I would've been into" FIRST if she had known about it as a kid. It "kind of gives me chills" to think about children watching that documentary — especially young women — and feeling inspired enough to give FIRST a shot, Jacobs said.
"The Contractor" made its debut in theaters last week. She plays Brianne, the wife of Chris Pine's recently discharged Army sergeant who takes a private contracting job that doesn't go as planned. It was filmed in 2019 and Jacobs was particularly excited for it to hit theaters after another movie she appeared in, 2020's "I Used to Go Here," had its big-screen ambitions derailed by the pandemic.
Most of her scenes are with Pine, who she had been a fan of for quite a while.
"He's really smart, cool and he's such a good actor," Jacobs said. "I think he made me better, and I had a great time."
It doesn't appear that Jacobs will be slowing down any time soon. She has three projects on the horizon: the Netflix series "Transatlantic," the romantic comedy "Any Other Night" and the film "The Seven Faces of Jane," where she plays the same character in multiple vignettes shot by different directors. Jacobs said it was a "true challenge for me as an actor" to maintain a consistent performance across so many styles, genres and tones.
