Having made her name as flawed hipster Britta in Community, the clean-living actor is now starring as sex-and-alcohol addict Mickey in Judd Apatow’s new show. Why does she keep getting cast against type?

Gillian Jacobs is trying to feed me. She’s sitting in her favourite Italian restaurant in West Hollywood, reminiscing about her childhood in Pittsburgh. “My mother was a terrible cook,” she says. “And my babysitter cooked good but very basic meals: meatloaf, Stouffer’s pizza. So it was so exciting when I moved to New York – and then LA – to discover all these vegetables I’d never heard of.” And with that, she breaks off to order a huge beets salad with polenta, which proves so good she demands I try it.

Jacobs moved to LA to play flawed hipster Britta Perry in Community, the hit (and very meta) TV comedy about a fictional community college in Colorado. She has now graduated to a headline role – playing Mickey, one of the leads in Love, the new Judd Apatow show about dating in the 21st century. On the surface, she and Mickey seem nothing alike. Jacobs drinks nothing stronger than coffee and sparkling water over lunch, which is not the sort of thing Mickey – a sex and alcohol addict – would settle for. When Mickey isn’t boozing about town, she tends to be hotboxing her car.

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Jacobs happily confesses to being a homebody since she relocated from the Big Apple. “I never wanted to spend time in my apartments in New York because they were always so terrible,” she says. “But I’ve realised I actually like where I live in LA – so it’s not the worst thing in the world to spend a night at home.”

The life she leads seems so different from the parts she plays, not least the role of Mimi Rose Howard, the hyperactive performance artist she portrayed on Girls for her friend Lena Dunham. Why does she keep getting cast against type? “Maybe I have more edge on screen,” she says. “My friends find it funny. They’re like: ‘Why do they want you for that?’” Isn’t it a blast to have torrid sex, smoke drugs and drink loads onscreen? “Of course! It’s just not what I’m up to in my real life.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘It’s not what I’m up to in real life’ … Jacobs as Mickey in Love. Photograph: Suzanne Hanover/Netflix

In her real life, Jacobs has recently directed a short documentary, The Queen of Code, about Grace Hopper, the naval officer and pioneer of computing who helped usher in the digital age. During her summer breaks from studying acting at New York’s famed Julliard School, Jacobs took extra courses in ancient Greek philosophy and American literature at Harvard and the University of Chicago, “purely for my own interest,” she says. “I like school!”

Judd likes smart funny women, and I’m really glad he’s giving them jobs

Despite the outward dissimilarities, Jacobs does feel a kinship to Mickey. “I’ve definitely been at points in my life where I felt confused why things weren’t going my way,” she says. “I eventually realised that I was the reason, and that’s what she’s grappling with. She’s stuck: romantically, professionally, and she’s alienated from her friends. But she’s the reason she’s not getting what she wants in life. I can relate to that.”

As Jacobs revealed in a personal essay she recently wrote for Dunham’s feminist blog Lenny – titled Learning How to Act Like Myself – things didn’t go to plan for her at Julliard. Becoming an actor had been her goal since childhood. “Growing up, I was always more comfortable with adults than kids my own age,” she writes. “My best friends were my babysitter Mrs Stobie and my neighbour Mr McShane, both of whom were in their 60s. We played Rack-O and listened to NPR. They encouraged my love of Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw.” So being accepted at Juilliard felt right – only no one there seemed to agree. “You’re a pretty girl with such UGLY physical habits,” she quotes one of her teachers telling her. “No one thought much of me as an actor,” she goes on. “I heard one teacher say to another: ‘Wasn’t she good in that play?’ And their response: ‘Finally.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I’m a real homebody’ … Jacobs. Photograph: Suzanne Hanover/Netflix

So drama school killed your dream? “I didn’t feel confident on stage by the end,” she says. “Weirdly, though, I did feel more confident on camera – because they hadn’t told me I was bad at it.”

When Community came her way, Jacobs was ready. “I was tired of doing really heavy, serious dramas,” she says (she played a runaway-turned-stripper-turned-junkie named Froggy in 2007’s Blackbird, and a stripper in Choke, a 2008 adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel). “I really loved shows like 30 Rock and the British Office. Community was one of the only scripts that made me laugh out loud.” But she still had no idea of her comic abilities. “I didn’t really know I was good,” she says, looking back. “Early on in the show, I would get scared because I wasn’t sure I knew how to sell something as a joke. But you eventually learn there’s an inherent timing to that stuff.”

It was Jacobs’ wry performance as Britta that led Paul Rust, her co-star in Love and one of the show’s creators, to write the part of Mickey with her in mind. He and Apatow were such fans that they cast her without even having her read for the role, and without a chemistry test for the pair. “It was a real act of faith,” she says. “I think Judd likes smart funny women, and I’m really glad he’s giving them jobs. He’s obviously got an incredibly talented wife and two really talented daughters, so it’s been great. I’ve loved working with him.”

In another act of faith, Netflix green-lit the second season of Love before the first season even dropped. “It feels like such a relief,” says Jacobs as she polishes off her polenta. “Not knowing what you are up to next is scary. Now I can relax.”