Generally, agents are the first to know what an actor’s next role is going to be. In the case of Gillian Jacobs’s arc on Girls this past year — a bold, prickly performance that deserves an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series — the Community star was aware that she’d be appearing as oh-so-hip Brooklyn artist, Mimi-Rose Howard, before her representative reached out with the good news.

“I was walking down the street in New York, and I saw a film crew shooting in a restaurant,” Jacobs recalls. “In the back of my head, I thought, ‘Maybe that’s Girls.’” It turned out that it was a crew working on Lena Dunham’s acclaimed and Emmy-nominated HBO series and, since she knew several people associated with the series, including executive producer Jennifer Konner, Jacobs stopped in to say hello. Then Konner dropped a critical piece of intel. “She said, ‘Did they talk to you about the part?’ I was like ‘What are you talking about?’ Then, as I was leaving the set, I got a call from my agent, who said, ‘Girls wants to talk to you about a part’ and I went, ‘Oh, I know already!’”

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What Jacobs couldn’t have known at the time was how memorable the role would turn out to be. Introduced as a new girlfriend for Adam (Adam Driver) — one he kept hidden from Hannah (Dunham) during her Iowa sojourn — Mimi-Rose is not at all plagued by the nagging self-doubt that drags Hannah down. Eventually, over the course of one long night that begins with a taxi accident and ends at a laundromat, Hannah and Mimi-Rose discover common ground…although the artist continues to be the bigger success story. “The work of hers that’s seen in the show is terrible,” says Jacobs of Mimi-Rose’s art. “But she didn’t try that hard. I’d like to see [the work] where she’s trying. But sometimes being popular and being good don’t have a lot of correlation.”

Jacobs also isn’t especially concerned with whether or not people find Mimi-Rose “likable” — a question that’s been raised about most of the characters on Girls. “I have a lot of sympathy for characters who are viewed as unlikable; I give them all a pass,” says Jacobs. “Britta was seen as a similar character within the world of Community. For a long time, I was [fans’] least favorite part of their favorite show!” Over Community’s six-season run, though, Britta went on to establish herself as a vital voice in the ensemble, without Jacobs having to artificially sweeten her. “I’ve tried to release myself from the whole ‘being likable’ thing, which is something a lot of actresses really struggle with. Women are required to be much more likable then men as film and TV characters. Some people are just never going to like Mimi-Rose, but it doesn’t do the writing or the character any kind of service by me half-assing it.”

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