- Studied acting at the Juilliard School, in New York City, graduating in 2004.
- Was accepted to Harvard and Northwestern University but chose to attend Julliard.
- Starred in such off-Broadway productions as "Little Flower of East Orange", which was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well as "A Feminine Ending", directed by Blair Brown.
- Made her New York stage debut in 2006 in "Cagelove". Her performance as an assault victim was praised in a New York Times review, which said she "has the glow of a star in the making".
- Her first love is theatre. She started acting at the Pittsburgh Public Theater and frequently competed in an annual Shakespeare Monologue Contest.
- Since she is a teetotaller in real life, she would spin around herself before the scenes where her character is drunk or ask crew members how it feels to be drunk.
- Her forename, Gillian, is pronounced with a hard "G" (as with Gilda, Gilmore etc).
- Despite playing Mickey Dobbs, a recovering alcoholic and a drug addict in the show Love (2016) on Netflix, in reality, Gillian is a teetotaler and practices complete personal abstinence from alcoholic beverages and drugs.
- Good friends with Community (2009) co-star Joel McHale.
- Had her ears pierced on live television as she has always been too scared to do it and figured that she couldn't chicken out if it was on national TV.
- One of her nicknames is 'Bubby' given by her mother, after the former Steelers quarterback Bubby Brister.
- Has a great interest in pod-casting. Apart from her notable appearances in Comedy Bang Bang: The Podcast (2009), also appeared in True-Crime Podcast, Blood Ties (2019) alongside Josh Gad. She also co-hosted a STEM podcast named, Periodic Talks (2021) with Diona Reasonover.
- Got robbed by train thieves after they sprayed drug inside the compartments on a train while going from Nice to Venice in Italy when she was with her family, as a child.
- Jacobs is of Irish, Scottish, German, and French heritage.
- Her grandfather, John Martin Magenau, was president and CEO of the family-owned Erie Brewing Company in Erie, Pennsylvania.
- Niece of former Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner.
- Her celebrity crush was Cary Grant when she was a teenager.
- Published several articles including personal essays and interviews for Lenny Letter between 2016 and 2017.
- She is a fan of the show Barry (2018).
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