When we first meet Gillian Jacobs in the Netflix limited series "Transatlantic," she looks like the kind of madcap Hollywood leading lady who should be trading barbs with Cary Grant, from her flamboyant hat to her tiny dog. But as the real-life heiress Mary Jayne Gold, she's something else — the real-life World War II heroine who helped some of the 20th century's greatest artists and intellectuals escape from Vichy France.
"It's a woman who, up until this point, has lived an incredibly charmed life and in this moment, could have chosen to leave," Jacobs noted during a recent "Salon Talks" conversation, "and chose to stay and use her wealth to help out." It's a role as far removed from Jacobs' "messy" characters on "Community" and "Love" as one can imagine. "She's flawed as a person, but in her appearance and her way of presenting through the world, she's not," Jacobs noted. "I could not fall back on any of my familiar tricks as an actress."
