Gillian Jacobs

Jacobs was born Gillian Maclaren Jacobs, to Martina Magenau Jacobs and William F Jacobs Jr in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in one of its suburbs, Mt. Lebanon.

She is of Irish, Scottish, German, and French heritage.

She made her name locally at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. There she was a perennial contender in the Public's Shakespeare Monologue Contest, which led to her being 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 study acting at The Juilliard School, where she was a member of the Drama Division's Group 33.

On the Community Season 2 DVD, in the commentary for the episode 'Mixology Certification', Yvette Nicole Brown mentions that Jacobs is a teetotaller. Jacobs confirmed this in her appearance on The Late Late Show in March 2013.

Jacobs's first national exposure came as Adele Congreve on the television series The Book of Daniel. Although she played Kimberly in the television pilot of Traveler, the role was recast when ABC acquired the series. She subsequently made guest appearances on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Fringe.

In 2006, Jacobs starred in an Off-Off-Broadway theatre production of playwright 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 "make sure to remember the name of Gillian Jacobs, a stunning Juilliard graduate who has the glow of a star in the making".

She has also appeared in theatrical productions of The Fabulous Life of a Size Zero (2007), A Feminine Ending (2007) and The Little Flower of East Orange (2008), directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Jacobs's film work includes Gardens of the Night (2007); writer-director Adam Rapp's Blackbird (2007); Choke (2008), based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, and The Box (2009).

In 2009, she became a regular on Community. Jacobs comments on it in an interview in Venus Zine's Fall 2010 Issue, "There's an absurdity to the show. We exist in a world in which anything can happen week to week, and that pushes me in so many ways."

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

Jacobs starred as Mickey in the Netflix original comedy series Love, which premiered in 2016. In 2020, Jacobs starred in the comedy-drama film I Used to Go Here, directed by Kris Rey