A Quote by Gillian Jacobs

I first came to LA auditioning during pilot season. I didn't really know anyone. The only people I'd meet were the girls I was up against at auditions. It wasn't the friendliest bunch.
I only do children's films now! I think when you go to LA some people feel you've defected a little bit and that's not really the case. Ideally, I would love to work here and to work in America. That's in an ideal world. In fact, I came back to Britain recently to do an ITV1 drama that will be out in April for a couple of months! But I'm flying back to LA to do a pilot season. So, to work in both places is great.
The first season of a show is kind of like an extended pilot. You're only really on the map if it goes a second season.
When I was auditioning for Divergent, I was kind of in the dumps. I wasn't really happy with acting, and I didn't know if I wanted to do it anymore. I went on a bunch of auditions and nothing worked out. Then they said, "Hey, you got a callback for this thing, Divergent." Because I was in such a weird place in my life, I didn't look up what it was about, didn't look up the director, didn't look up that Shai Woodley was a part of it. I read the script, obviously, but I closed myself off from anything else.
I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called 'Boiling Points' on MTV.
When I was starting out, it seemed like there were so many girls who were known by their first names, who were unique, who all had idiosyncrasies and characteristics that made them individual. Those girls stuck around; you'd work with them season after season. But now it's completely different.
LA is the only place where people know my name and still walk up to me and ask it. And I think that was really representative of a lot of the transplant people in LA. I just found everything so phoney.
When 'Hung' got canceled, I was available for pilot season, and 'Arrow' was the first thing I auditioned for. It wasn't the first script that came to me, but it was my first audition.
One of the things I noticed about the '2 Broke Girls' pilot was that it looked like a new episode in a season and not a pilot, and that's an amazing sign.
I came to New York in 1974, when I graduated from college. And you had to use 'Backstage' because all of the auditions were listed there. Most people didn't come with agents, so you got to see a lot of what was auditioning and when and where. 'Backstage' made sure you knew the major places.
Some of the friendliest, friendliest people you're going to meet are going to be in Detroit.
I wasn't really interested in doing anything except going from pilot season to pilot season and sowing my oats in the months between and telling my agency to stop sending me movie scripts, because they'd pile up in my house and make me feel guilty because I had to read them.
I've had some rank auditions where I embarrassed myself to new heights, which is hard for me to do. I was never good at auditioning. There are a number of actors over the years come up the ranks who are horrific at auditioning.
There were moments where Supergirl gets a thrashing in the pilot, where if a man in the 'Flash' or 'Arrow' pilot got beat up, people didn't visibly wince. And I watched in testing, people in the audience really became uncomfortable by the fisticuffs and the action. But then, they were elated and cheering at the end.
My one piece of advice to anyone trying to do acting - this would just be to keep going. It sounds really basic, but I went to 121 auditions my first year in L.A. That is no exaggeration, because I keep lists - I know it's a little psychotic - of every audition that I have ever been to. I went to 121 auditions and I got none. But who cares?
One time in spring training, we had the hit-and-run on, and Carl Erskine threw me a curve and I struck out into a double play. I came back to the bench and Casey [Stengel] said, 'next time, tra-la-la.' I didn't know what tra-la-la meant, but next time up, I hit a line drive, right into a double play. When I sat down, Casey came over and said, 'Like I told you, tra-la-la.'
I was sitting on top of people and it was just really uncomfortable. There was no place to move. And, I don't like auditioning, anyways. With auditions, you can get so nervous, or other things get into your head and throw you off, and it doesn't really reflect what you can do, as an actor. The whole thing was just really nerve-wracking, but I ended up getting it.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!