Interview with Abby Jacobson: “For many queer people, the first person they fall for changes the course of their lives”

Yyou did that!” Abby Jacobson exclaims, almost in disbelief that I went there. “You know me inside and out.” I just reminded her of what she called the most embarrassing moment on set. It includes nearly 35 failed attempts to throw a bathroom wrench at an embarrassingly close target while filming the 2018 family drama. 6 balloons, opposite Dave Franco. What’s most surprising about her giggles is that the actor, comedian, writer, illustrator and producer – who is known for sporting huge dildos on screen in his breakthrough comedy series Wide city – was humbled by a simple set of keys. “Those fucking keys, man,” she recalls, laughing. “It was a terrible day.”

As it turns out, Jacobson is a pretty good shooter after all. She was recently tapped to up the ante by taking on the role of professional baseball player Carson Shaw in her new co-created series Own league. She’s clear that director Penny Marshall’s beloved 1992 film “doesn’t need a remake,” rather she and co-creator Will Graham (Mozart in the jungle) prefer the term “rethinking”.

So what does the reimagining of this cult classic look like? A more comprehensive study of World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball players that expands into racially and sexually diverse territories only hinted at in the original. “We’re really telling stories that couldn’t be told in 1992 in a two-hour slot,” Jacobson explains to me over a video call from a Los Angeles hotel room.

Jacobson was in his fourth season of Wide city – where she played the suspicious Abby Abrams, a heightened version of her own timid self, alongside the extroverted Ilana Wexler, co-creator and friend of Ilana Glazer – when Graham approached her with the remarkable opportunity. “I had a few other things lined up, but I hadn’t thought of another show to be in,” she says. Although Wide city as a “full, full-time job” in which she was not only the star but also the writer and director, there was no way she was going to say no. “They were talking Own league!” she beams. “It was one of my favorite movies growing up.”

Jacobson acknowledges the seriousness of such an imposing project. I ask if she’s nervous about potential criticism from fans or cast members of the 30-year-old film. “No, I’m not nervous at all!” she jokes, adding, “At the end of the day, I’m really trying to become someone who can let how I feel about the product trump what someone else might think of him.’

Carson can feel miles away from Wide cityAbby Abrams—she’s a 1940s housewife who runs away from her traditional life in Idaho to pursue a dream—while Abrams was a twenty-something New Yorker struggling to survive in a ruthless city. But at a deeper level, both are women struggling with identity. “There’s an ‘I’ that connects them,” she laughs. “I tend to amplify things that I’m not sure about in my own life. So [they] both tend to walk around in their insecurities and shyness.

Even after five highly successful seasons of Wide citystudded with cameos of Curb your enthusiasm and portlandia, as well as voice acting in a Netflix animated series Disappointment and the Academy Award-nominated animated film The Mitchell Family vs. The Machines, Jacobson has moments of doubt. “In the work that I do, where I’m often in a small room — how am I part of leading the show?” But just as Carson eventually discovered the power of her voice and emerged as an incredible leader, Jacobson did the same. “I think I put a lot of myself into the characters I write about myself,” she tells me. “It’s a very meta experience.”

Carson was a late bloomer and finally explored his sexuality in his twenties. When he meets his wildly flirtatious and shameless teammate Greta (The good place‘c D’Arcy Carden), Carson’s cautious facade falls by the wayside as the two embark on a secret love affair. Jacobson and Carden themselves have been best friends in real life for 15 years, meeting at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade comedy and improv theater in New York, which perhaps speaks to their undeniable on-screen chemistry. “I think anyone who spends time with D’Arcy falls a little bit in love with her,” Jacobson says of Carden, who also stars in HBO’s dark killer comedy Barry.

While Marshall’s film contains all too vague hints of queerness, Jacobson and Carden are more than proud to put this essential story of LGBT+ love at the center of the new series. “Greta will forever be a very important person in Carson’s life,” she explains. “And I think for a lot of queer people, the first person they fall for — even have a queer experience — changes the course of their lives.”

Jacobson, 38, knows a thing or two about first loves. Shortly after going public in 2018, the hyphenate wrote her debut novel, I might regret it: essays, drawings, vulnerabilities, and morewhich takes readers on her vulnerable drive across the country in the summer of 2017 amid devastating heartbreak after her first major romance with a woman.

Now, she couldn’t be more in love with her current boyfriend, actor Jody Balfour (For all mankind). The pair were relatively low-key about their relationship – only sharing cryptic photos on Instagram – until last October, when they celebrated their one-year anniversary with the world. For Jacobson, who is “private in many ways,” going public was “a bit of a push and pull.” However, she challenged herself by asking, “We are so happy. I would post a picture of me and my dog ​​Desi. Why don’t we just post a picture of ourselves enjoying the day?’

Jacobson admits there’s a much bigger problem, too. “I really think this performance is a little bit in my mind,” she says. “Not to say I’m posting a picture of us to say, ‘We need people to know there are queer people out there.’ I don’t do that. But I’m kind of like! I don’t feel like there are many of us in the industry.’

Representation is a key part of Jacobson’s ideology. As someone who only discovered her sexuality in her thirties, she feels a sense of purpose Own league to tell the neglected stories of the queer women who came before her. “You just hope that you can open people’s minds and make people who don’t feel noticed feel noticed and empowered.”

“I wish I had seen it as a kid,” she reflects. “Who knows what would have happened?”

A League of Their Own premieres on Prime Video on August 12