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On The Spot with Anna Chlumsky and Gillian Jacobs
Nov 11, 2022
You won't want to miss this candid interview with Anna Chlumsky and Gillian Jacobs - two of the stars of the off-Broadway play, The Fabulous Life of a Size Zero as they discuss the show and share insights about teens and the internet, how the media and peers affect self worth, and more. Click now to watch this special feature and then go see both stars down at the DR2 Theatre before July 1st!
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0:00
Hi Broadway World! I'm Anna Klumsky
0:13
And I'm Gillian Jacobs. And we are in The Fabulous Life of a Size Zero
0:19
At the DR2 in Union Square. Well I play a girl who's a high school senior applying to Harvard
0:26
And a real great student, but not too popular. So she decides to follow the advice of superstar, become bulimic, lose a lot of weight, get popular
0:35
She kind of loses her way along the path. Bulimia wasn't losing her way
0:41
No, it was the stuff that came later. That's actually helped her out a lot
0:45
She got a boyfriend. That's true. Tell him everything. Yeah, sorry. Aided by my friend
0:52
Oh, yes. I play many characters, but most of my stage time is playing Heather, which is a girl's best friend
1:03
And I'm just kind of on that journey with her. And then I also play other characters that kind of give voice to other teenage girls around the country in monologue, blog-type form
1:16
I think because it doesn't just come from media, it comes from parents
1:25
Like you see in the play, it comes from your peers. And, you know, when you hit adolescence, there's this whole other world of attraction
1:34
and wanting to be desirable to the opposite sex. And I think boys, as much as girls, have ingested this image of women that's been produced by the media
1:43
so that maybe their expectations of girls match what they see in magazines as well
1:48
So I think that everyone wants to be loved. Everyone wants to fit into the image of the norm
1:55
And parents want what they think is best for their kids, but they don't always know the best way to go about getting that for them
2:04
I also think that celebrity culture has become much more pervasive through blogs and websites
2:10
and that we know more and more about the day-to-day lives of our celebrities
2:18
so maybe that makes it feel more attainable in a way because we know so many facts about them
2:23
feel like we know them even though we don't. And so why can't you wear their jeans and drink their favorite drink
2:31
and go to the clubs that they like to go to? I think it's interesting how you mentioned it
2:39
I feel like the eating disorders and the feeling that you need to be a celebrity
2:46
that you need to fit into something, that you need to please somebody in order for them to love you
2:50
I feel like all of that, a lot of the subjects of this show are maybe even a function of a deeper problem
2:56
which is a sense of worthlessness. I feel that there are a lot of people, and that definitely bridges the gender gap, too
3:04
I think a lot of people spend a lot of their lives
3:09
just trying to find some sense of self And then they would look at the media and be like oh well I not worthy see I have proof do you know what I mean as opposed to necessarily somebody on the page calling them unworthy I mean it all I
3:27
don't I never necessarily felt like I was any kind of a role model because I
3:34
was 10 years old and I definitely was looking for a role model myself do you
3:37
You know, and I also feel like I definitely wasn't in the public eye half as much as maybe even some people wanted me to be
3:46
I, you know, I definitely, if anybody thought that I was their role model, my goodness
3:51
like they'd be like, I want to go to the west side of Chicago and go to it. But your parents kept you, your parents didn't move you to L.A
3:57
No, they didn't because I asked not to. I was like, I want to stay, you know, from day one
4:02
That was something that my mom did very well, which was that she always asked me what I wanted
4:07
She never told me to do anything. She was always saying, do you want to keep modeling in Sears catalogs
4:13
And at one point, I think I was just like, no, I don't feel like it. And she's like, okay, we won't do that anymore
4:19
And to an eight-year-old, I don't feel like it is pretty much what you're going to get
4:24
You're not going to get an existential reason why not. That's a big theme of the show is the Anyone Can Be a Star theme
4:35
And, right, I mean, you can speak more to that because that's definitely more your character
4:39
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a compulsion among teenagers to maybe share too much sometimes
4:44
And it's, you know, you can give it sort of minute by minute updates of your life
4:49
And, but I remember, to take it to a serious level, when the Virginia Tech shootings happened
4:56
there was a kid who was writing on LiveJournal. And he became sort of the media fixated on him as this kid who's there experiencing it and writing it firsthand
5:04
and they all sort of swarmed on him, and he was getting thousands of requests for interviews
5:10
And I think that it is a way for kids to reach a worldwide audience
5:16
especially in a time of crisis like that, or something that's compelling to the media
5:21
especially if you don't fit in at your school or you're not super popular
5:25
and you can find a community online and feel like you have connections to people
5:29
and that you don't feel so alone. I think that's maybe the positive aspect
5:33
I think that the more it happens, too, the more intense it gets
5:40
I think just being educated about what could happen with it, who's watching
5:46
There has to be a balance of knowing that you're writing stuff that people will be reading
5:54
It's a great thing because, yes, it's like journaling. It's like Diary of Anne Frank times..
6:01
times 20. But it'll be interesting to see if these kids, when they go
6:06
for job interviews in 10 years, if their employer is going to be like, well, I
6:09
Googled you, and I saw that in sixth grade you like to do
6:14
X, Y, and Z. I don't know. It's true. I think privacy
6:17
is a very lovely thing, and I think it's a right that we all
6:24
have, and yeah if you know when before especially in a teenager world or even preteen like you know kids like young kids who you know have their own email accounts or something like that I don think they have a sense of they still trying to make friends
6:42
They're still in the I want to be loved mode. And I think that it's very important that they're educated about what they are partaking in
6:53
when they are doing a blog or a MySpace or something like that because the wrong people could be watching
7:02
I think it's all incredibly relatable. I mean I think we all
7:07
were remembering things from high school interactions with our parents applying to college
7:14
I never quite figured out how to become popular in high school so I didn't even have an
7:19
opportunity to make some of the mistakes that girl did I was sitting at home with my mom
7:23
watching A&E so but I definitely I mean like what Anna said that lifelong search
7:34
for self-worth doesn't end once you graduate from college. So I think to value yourself
7:40
and to appreciate what's unique about you because I think that's the thing in high school
7:47
Everybody wants to conform. Nobody wants to stand out. And all the things that make you an interesting adult
7:51
are liabilities when you're a teenager. Professionally, what I've learned about playing characters like this
7:58
is that it's so easy to maybe do a caricature of these kids or of what you see on TV
8:07
and you're like, oh, I know this. This is my super sweet 16. And I got, and just make it a caricature
8:12
but it's certainly made me explore this next generation of girls as people
8:19
as opposed to just people who talk weird or talk different from myself
8:24
There's definitely a different language. There's definitely a different timbre in the youthful voice
8:30
but they're real people and you can't shut that out when you're playing them
8:36
because chances are a lot of the stuff you feel are the stuff that they feel as well
8:40
it's almost like they're speaking in code the yeah's and whatever's and not even
8:45
it's like you're either afraid to say what you're really feeling you're afraid no one's going to listen to you
8:51
or you don't quite know how to express it so they speak to each other
8:56
in this coded language that Marissa really found. Yeah. And I think that we've had a lot of fun
9:03
exploring the scenes between the two of us as friends and what that relationship is like
9:08
and those subtle betrayals. Yeah. I think teenage girls are intensely aware
9:15
of how they're affecting other people and how they're making other people feel. Yes
9:19
So two very alive people on stage, very concerned about how they're making the other one feel. Right
9:26
It makes for a fun scene. Yes! It's kind of creepy
9:36
Yeah, we actually, right before our first rehearsal, happened to be at the same audition at the same time And we were waiting for the elevator and Anna turned to me and said are you Gillian Are you in the fabulous life yeah and then we rode the train up together to the first rehearsal and we talking the whole way so yeah and we and we pretty much been at every audition together since
9:55
then yeah just randomly like hello there you are and uh and we yeah bizarre things in common from
10:02
when we were but we'd never been in an audition at the same time prior to that but now since we've
10:06
started doing the show see each other all the time universe works in mysterious ways
10:11
It's a film adaptation of a play by Adam Rapp That was done in New York a couple years ago
10:21
And we shot it in 18 days It was a really low budget, quick shoot
10:25
It was a wonderful experience I was opposite Paul Sparks Who I'm sure BroadwayWorld.com readers know and love
10:31
And a lot of other great New York stage actors And yeah, it took us over a year to find an audience
10:39
It played at the South by Southwest Film Festival this year, which was wonderful and really gratifying to have people finally see it
10:47
I'm not sure as to the status at this present moment, but I hope that someday it will find distribution
10:53
because I think it's a really great film with some great performances. I hope to see it, too
10:58
Yes, absolutely. That was a piece I was writing pretty much
11:07
That was my ambition for a few years when I thought that I was done with show business
11:11
which is what the article's about. I was publishing. I was an editorial assistant, and there was a book, an anthology
11:21
that came across my desk for an anthology of essays by writers
11:25
about being in their 20s and being in what they call the pre-life crisis
11:31
I just remember being up all night thinking about, wow, I have something to write about that
11:36
and it was called Peaking at Ten. And at the time, it really wasn't the article that it became
11:44
It became a much better article because in the meantime of me working with those girls
11:48
I came back to show business, which I feel is really what I'm here to do
11:53
and which is really my calling. So it was a much better article because there was something to say
11:58
Like there was, oh, hey, here I am. I had this weird moment in my life, and now I know what I want to do
12:06
And they're great girls. It's a really fun anthology called Before the Mortgage
12:12
Isn't that cute? At your local bookstore. Yeah, it's an essay from there
12:18
And the article was in Sirens. They took the excerpt. If you read through the article, you know, the beginning is me crying and going to psychics
12:24
And then by the end, it's, you know, I'm doing my theater and I'm doing my film and I'm happy
12:30
I would not rather be doing anything else. It's witty and smart and biting and heartfelt and it'll make you cry and it'll make you
12:45
laugh and there's dancing. There's musical numbers. If you want to see Gillian Jacobs dance, the only place to find it is at the DR2 until
12:55
July 1st
#Teen Interests
#Broadway & Musical Theater