Rising Star Filmmaker Jess Jacobs On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Entertainment Industry

An Interview with Elana Cohen

If you’re not sure how to do something, it’s important to figure it out and collaborate with someone who can guide you. Everyone needs a mentor or guidance at some point. People who are hustlers tend to teach themselves things and hope that someone will come along and help them further along the way. You may get lucky and things will go well, but it’s generally better to collaborate with someone and get guidance. Falling on your face is a natural part of the process, but it’s better to learn from someone who has been there before.

As a part of our interview series with leaders, stars, and rising stars in the music industry, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jess Jacobs.

Jess Jacobs is an award-winning actress, a writer, producer, and philanthropist-activist with a focus on stories and work which center female and femme experiences towards equity and justice. Jess has premiered films at Cannes Film Festival, SXSW and SIFF, has films and series available on Hulu and Topic as well as in theaters across the country, and has spoken at Sundance, Women Deliver, UN’s General Assembly Week, and various others. Jess was the co-founder of women-led, New York based production company, Invisible Pictures and is currently touring her most recent film Choices. She was named one of Real Leader Magazine’s 100 Visionary Leaders, and is the Chair of the Board of Rooftop Films.

In parallel to her creative work, Jess is known for her global philanthropy in reproductive health, rights and abortion justice. She is a co-founder of DIGG: Donor Intro to Grounded Giving, is a member of the Maverick Collective (PSI), and has regularly collaborated with non-profit organizations such as Planned Parenthood, National Network of Abortion Funds, and National Women’s Law Center on special projects — most notably, by partnering on the creation of a short film on the Global Gag Rule (Global HER Project), which Teen Vogue distributed in advance of International Day of the Girl in 2019.

Jess is a member of New York Women in Film & Television, and one of 24 NYWIFT members with projects that screened at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. She was executive producer of Plan C, which follows a hidden grassroots organization doggedly fighting to expand access to abortion pills across the United States, keeping hope alive during a global pandemic and the fall of Roe v. Wade.

I would love to start with how you got to where you are today; how did you decide this would be your career?

Growing up in a family of engineers, pursuing a professional career in the arts wasn’t even a consideration for me. However, I did a lot of community theater and always enjoyed performing and playing dress-up. In high school, my drama teacher had a friend who was casting for a professional production in San Diego and was in need of a teenage girl. A group of us from school auditioned, and I believe there was also an open casting call in San Diego. It was a surreal experience because not only did I get the part, but all of my friends who auditioned with me were cast as well. We were making sandwiches at the local Baskin Robbins ice cream shop one day, and the next day we were getting paid to act. It was mind-blowing, and I never looked back.

I used to work in theater in San Diego, but then I moved to New York to attend acting school for a year. After dropping out, I started working locally in New York and doing regional theater. Eventually, I started to break into the film and TV industry, and I stayed on that trajectory for a while until about 2016. During that time, I went to more auditions and was fortunate enough to be auditioning for incredible projects, such as big network TV shows and streaming content.

Despite the opportunities I had, I didn’t feel entirely satisfied with the characters I was auditioning for, even if they were the leads. I also wasn’t enjoying the overall experience of being an actor as much as I wanted to. For me, it didn’t align with my creative energy, and I wanted to be in control of my own destiny. You know what I mean? It’s a common feeling when you’re in the middle of your career and going to these auditions. Even if you get the lead role, it might not be the right fit, like playing a peppy cheerleader or something. It just didn’t feel right for me.

Do I really want to continue doing this for seven years? Also, at that time, I was witnessing the rise of Donald Trump, someone in the entertainment industry who understands the power of storytelling. This made me realize that I have a huge responsibility when it comes to the content I choose to work on or say yes to. I get to create something that can shape our culture and the cultural narrative, which is pretty amazing. I was really bothered by the way Hillary Clinton was being treated and spoken about, regardless of whether you liked her or not. It was just not okay to see a woman being talked about in such a way. It was a moment for me to realize that I want to create something that will give me a voice and allow me to be heard. Especially when we look back at the renaissance, it’s like, “Wow, a woman would never do anything.” Now, we got so close to having a female president, but still, women are not taken seriously.

My mission is to empower women to get their voices heard and to fight for our rights. Being the mistress of our destiny is what drives me the most as an artist and a producer. The projects I write and produce are from an activist perspective, and the fight is for self-determination.voices heard and to be able to fight for our rights for everything. Yes, I think being the master of our destiny is what really drives me as an artist and producer. The projects I write and produce are driven by the fight for self-determination from both an artistic and activist perspective.

So when I was looking at your work and your bio, you’re hitting those hard-hitting, relevant issues in our society.

People are so afraid of people who are different from them. I think we’re in…but this is a whole other conversation, and such a soapbox that I can get on. But differences are not wrong or bad. Differences are differences. And the more we see differences as bad, the further apart we get and the more siloed we get. The more extreme and frankly dangerous those differences become. There will always be extremes, you know. But I think the center of the conversation, from a progressive versus conservative viewpoint, feels like it gets more violent and more dangerous when we don’t make space to see the humanity of each other. And that’s a whole other thing.

There are many social issues in the world, and You tackle so many of them; how do you decide your next project based on how your process works?

That’s a great question. I think it’s about finding alignment with myself — what my interests are and where my truth lies. I try to find ways to bring added value to a topic. The conversation around abortion, pregnancy, and women’s rights is important to me, and I often share my own abortion story. When I had an abortion at 19, Instagram had just become a thing, and people were not talking about it. Finding a community was challenging, but I eventually aligned my story with my professional career as a writer, actor, and producer. I never looked around and thought objectively that people need to talk about abortion more. That’s just not my process. After a few pieces were out in the world, exciting projects started to come my way. Saying “no” to a project recently investigating the anti-abortion movement was essential for me. I couldn’t align myself with that movement and didn’t want to give them more air time. Instead, I love the documentary “Plan C” and “Tracy’s Dog” project I worked on because it follows the fierce leaders at the tip of the spear of the movement in a moment of crisis. There’s an option at the end of the year, which isn’t reproductive justice, but there’s a lot of work to do to ensure everyone has all the choices they could want available to them. Being in a room as an actor with casting directors can be difficult. Once, I gave input about an actor, and the casting director got angry with me. Although I understand that casting directors are the unsung heroes of our industry, that moment made me realize that even they don’t always feel heard.

What are some things that you wish someone told you before you got into the industry,

One thing to keep in mind is that there isn’t a right path, there’s no one way, and the only way you’ll find your way is by trying things. So my second piece of advice is to go and try things — just do it. It’s often said that you need experience to get experience in many things, but I believe this is a perpetuated myth. Yes, you need to gain experience, but you also need to start somewhere. For example, if you want to start filming, just pick up a camera and start filming. You will have to get your hands dirty and learn some skills along the way, but it’s not something you’re entitled to. There are also elders and people who have been in the industry for longer who you can learn from and listen to, but at the end of the day, it’s up to you to take action.

I used to spend so much time asking for permission to write or produce something, but at some point, I just started writing and sharing it. It didn’t have to be perfect, and I was able to find my voice. I admire your fearlessness and not caring about what others might say or think, even if they make dumb comments about being a woman. You are definitely an inspiration to other women, especially millennials who struggle with being taken seriously because of their age.

I used to be terrified that I wouldn’t be valuable. How are you supposed to know until you try? Making mistakes is a part of the process, and there will be collateral damage. But it’s important to ask for help when you need it. Asking for help is underrated. Now, I love asking for help, and it builds trust and camaraderie. It’s a symptom of the patriarchy for women to feel like they can’t ask for help because they’ll be seen as weak. But asking for help is a sign of strength and leads to better outcomes than trying to wing it.

If you’re not sure how to do something, it’s important to figure it out and collaborate with someone who can guide you. Everyone needs a mentor or guidance at some point. People who are hustlers tend to teach themselves things and hope that someone will come along and help them further along the way. You may get lucky and things will go well, but it’s generally better to collaborate with someone and get guidance. Falling on your face is a natural part of the process, but it’s better to learn from someone who has been there before.

I would love to know if there was anyone in history or anyone who could be alive, not alive, that you would want to talk to, whether it be career-wise or anything of the sort, and why?

“Wow, that’s an excellent question, but a tough one.” There are so many people I could name. Personally, I met the people I needed to meet when I went to N.Y.U. for my degree in art history. One of the questions on the college application was, “Who is an artist you admire?” and I chose Andy Warhol. He was a party animal and a rabble-rouser, but he had such an innovative mind.

Someone else who comes to mind is Michelle Obama. I know it’s a basic answer, but she’s a leader with such honesty and grace. She doesn’t pretend that the hard stuff isn’t hard, and she celebrates her wonderfulness without being resentful of the sacrifices she made for her husband’s career. There’s such feminism in compromise, and she’s a badass. I met her once, and the first thing she said to me was, “Finally, a normal-sized person again!” I loved that because, growing up as a tall gal, I was ashamed of taking up space. When she made that comment, I felt seen and appreciated. Even just that one little moment with her was powerful. I can’t imagine having a whole lunch with her. She’s still doing her thing, being a teacher and having a career, even with Joe Biden as president. We’re all finding our ways and doing what’s best for us. The more aligned we are with ourselves, the more beautiful and resilient we become. It’s a hard thing to learn, especially in an industry where critics can be harsh, but the more self-love we have, the more deep our community becomes, and the more resilient we are in the face of adversity.

What are your plans moving forward? What type of stuff do you want to work on now?

“So I spend little time in the documentary space, in some plan C. Being part of a documentary film team and telling these authentic stories has been fun. You get to collaborate with real people. So I’m exploring a partnership with another documentary creative consulting firm, and some work with them. We’ll see if that comes to fruition, but it’s fun to get to play in that world. Recently, I announced a TV show that I’m producing based on a novel called The Hush by Sarah Foster. I highly recommend that everybody reads it. It’s sort of like a near-future dystopian thriller, a kind of political thriller about an epidemic in the UK and the subsequent disappearance of pregnant teenage girls. It’s perfect for everything that I stand for. The manuscript is brilliant, and Sarah is a Ph.D. studying the representation of mother-daughter relationships on television. This brilliant force of a woman wrote this incredible book as her thesis, and now we’re adapting it for TV. It’s so fun to tell stories about women and pregnancy coming together, and again, this is a story that’s dark and heavy, but the end is so hopeful. It’s about community and the power of coming together. I’m super excited for it to be made and to be out in the world. Then, I have a feature film that I wrote and produced that I partnered with an Iraqi director, now an American citizen, named Jihad Rasheed. He and I collaborated for six years, and the feature film is now in post-production. It will be coming out this year.”

One more question, what would you say is one of the most fun projects you’ve gotten to work on or something that was totally out of your comfort zone?

I worked on a short-form television show about the city, which I love as an audience member. I caught on to that in every horror film, which is so weird, but I love it. But I have never been very interested in genre work because I’m very character-driven. I like dramas, dark comedies, and everything in between. So, I haven’t worked in the genre space before, but I made this show with Cody and our studio as the creators and directors, and everybody was just downright incredible.

But one night, we were shooting in New Orleans, where the whole thing took place. It’s a series of creepy stories from New Orleans, and one night we were shooting a seance for our third episode, “Give Man.” There were pyrotechnics, a fire guy, and everyone was dressed in garb from the deep lore of Nola, enacting this seance. All of a sudden, all of this crazy stuff starts going wrong. All of the costumes get locked in one of the rooms with the key, and one of the actors leaves at the wrong time due to miscommunication, and we have to wait to get him back. It starts pouring rain like it hadn’t rained any other day. There were crazy thunderstorms on another day, but that’s another story for another time. It was just this moment where I was like, “Oh wow! We have brought the show here and a little bit outside of my comfort zone, and we have to continue shooting.”

We finished the shoot, and we ended up getting the shots we needed. All of the changes to the actor were made, and he came back, and we finished the day. But it was bananas. It sounds like we couldn’t control the weather!

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!