‘No Good Deed’s Abbi Jacobson on Finally Accepting She Didn’t Need to Study at a Conservatory to Take on Dramatic Roles

Thanks to the success of the beloved Comedy Central series, Broad City, Abbi Jacobson is widely known as a comedic force in film and television. But, as of late, she’s busy uniting her comedy skillset with more dramatic performance opportunities, and the power of her ability to do both is undeniable. After soaring in the canceled-too-soon Prime Video series, A League of Their Own, Jacobson joins the ensemble of yet another brilliant comedy and drama combo, Netflix’s No Good Deed.

At the center of Liz Feldman’s (Dead to Me) latest for the streamer, we find Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano as Lydia and Paul Morgan, a couple gearing up to sell their gorgeous 1920s Spanish-style Los Feliz villa. The appeal of the property sparks a bidding war, a war Jacobson’s Leslie finds herself right smack in the middle of. Leslie and her wife Sarah, played by Poppy Liu, are ready to do just about anything to snag the house, but then they start to suspect there might be some dark and dangerous secrets tied to the property — secrets that’ll test how far they’re truly willing to go to get their dream home.

As we now come to expect from a Liz Feldman show, No Good Deed is a laugh-out-loud romp that’s also brimming with heart and pathos. Jacobson is especially adept at achieving a pitch-perfect blend of the two qualities, further cementing the fact that she’s not only a hugely talented comedic actress, but a dramatic star, too.

In celebration of No Good Deed’s release on Netflix, Jacobson swung by for a Collider Ladies Night chat to revisit her choice to leave the Atlantic Theater Company for the The Upright Citizens Brigade, and how, all these years later, she’s finally come to accept that she didn’t have to study at an acting conservatory to take on dramatic roles.

Jacobson Was the Star of 8th Grade Homeroom

“I came to my homeroom and I did the reports as Linda Richman.”

While revisiting her earliest inspirations, Jacobson heavily highlighted the impact Saturday Night Live had on her, particularly Gilda Radner and Mike Myers’ work in “Coffee Talk.” In fact, she was so inspired by Linda Richman, she opted to use the character to spice up her role as homeroom student council representative in eighth grade. She recalled:

“Every month you would go to student council meetings as a representative of [your] homeroom and you’d hear about, ‘There’s gonna be a dance on Sunday,’ and, ‘There’s gonna be this vending machine.’ I remember at the time, a big innovation in our school was that there was gonna be a fruit vending machine. It was the ‘90s. We had snacks, but there must have been some governmental initiative to try to get public schools to have fruit more. Anyway, I remember that being one of the things. So,
you’d go to these meetings and then you’d go back to your homeroom and report what was going on at school
. I was, again, obsessed with SNL. This time, I was
really
into Mike Myers. The live shows I was watching, I was enamored with him and especially Coffee Talk, Linda Richman, and so I came to my homeroom and
I did the reports as Linda Richman
.”

While Jacobson’s very creative spin on student council reports was quite fun in the moment, the experience also started to nudge her down the path we find her on today. “I think the kids loved it, but I remember it was the teacher who loved it. There are three teachers who would come in, other home rooms would come in to watch me do this.” As Jacobson noted, if the adults were enjoying the presentation, there must be something there worth pursuing — and she did.

Why Jacobson Opted Out of Drama School

“It sucked. It sucked balls.”

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Jacobson earned a BFA in General Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art. While there she developed a project that involved her playing different comedic characters and then projecting those characters in a gallery space. She recalled, “I got feedback that people really loved this, and I allowed myself to finally admit, ‘I think I want to be an actor.’”

In pursuit of that dream, she applied to the Atlantic Acting School’s Theater Conservatory Program. She got in. A dream come true — initially.

“This was huge for me. I graduated college, moved to New York with someone I knew from college, and we were roommates in Astoria, and I started at Atlantic.
I was there in that conservatory program for a week. It broke me down.
Art school, for me, was this very expansive environment. It really taught me how to see. When you are studying art, you’re looking at light, and there are different ways of seeing things, which I think really helped me become very observant later in life in terms of how I write and all these things. But, Atlantic was very confining for me. I got so in my head.
I felt very frozen in the way in which they were teaching.
It was really intense scene study, and I was not used to that. It was breaking down text and breaking down dialogue and, ‘You’re saying this, but what are you
really
saying?’ Which is a way a lot of actors learn to break down text; it just is not how my brain works.
It sucked. It sucked balls.
”

The disappointment was significant. “I remember, there’s a block in New York, it’s on 15th and maybe Eighth Avenue, and I remember breaking down.” She added, “I moved here to be an actor, and I can’t do it.” Little did Jacobson know at that precise moment, she could do it. She just had to find the right way for her to do it.

“I went home to my apartment that I was living in with a friend who I went to MICA with, and she was like, ‘Have you ever heard of this place, the Upright Citizens Brigade? Your videos — you would love it.’ I had never even heard of it, hadn’t heard of the show, and
I went by myself and watched a random-ass improv. I don’t even know what show it was, and I was like, ‘That is what I want to do.’
”

Jacobson’s instincts were spot-on. However, while UCB teed her up for great success in the comedy space, it’d take nearly 20 years for Jacobson to accept the fact that one doesn’t need to complete a formal acting program to take on dramatic roles. Here’s how Jacobson put it:

“This is almost 20 years ago. I graduated in 2006 from college, so we’re talking fall of 2006 is when I discovered UCB, and for a long time, up until recently, there’s been a little bit of a thing of, ‘Well, I’m not trained. I’m not an actor. I can’t do drama.’ So,
I’m just now coming to realize I don’t need to have gone to Atlantic to consider myself an actor
and to be able to take on dramatic parts.”

Jacobson also took a moment to add, “I have to stop that narrative because I do think so much of my training at UCB lends itself to drama. I think, also, comedy is so heartbreaking.” Indeed it is, and that quality of comedy is on full display in No Good Deed.

Abbi Jacobson Is Liz Feldman in ‘No Good Deed’

Jacobson’s No Good Deed character, Leslie, is inspired by the showrunner.

If you dug Dead to Me, No Good Deed will likely be right up your alley. Similar to Feldman’s Emmy nominated series staring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini (also in No Good Deed), No Good Deed sizzles via its unique balance of comedy and drama, it’s captivating main characters, and the curious mystery unfolding.

“I was such a fan of
Dead to Me
and of [Liz’s]. She has a very unique style. It’s
very
Liz.
No Good Deed
has a lot of the same elements that you feel when you watch
Dead to Me
. I think you feel a lot of, ‘Wait, what’s going on?’ Every episode is twists and turns and shocks, and it’s funny and it’s sad. You’re on a little roller coaster ride. I felt like that tone was different than what I had done, and it’s a mystery.”

Another perk of the part? Jacobson’s character is actually inspired by Liz herself. She continued:

“Liz also told me that Leslie Fisher, my character, is sort of based on her, which is so fun. That was just such a different thing. I’m not doing an impression, but it was very cool throughout the whole thing to have Liz. She’s very full of energy, and is also very Type-A. She’s also the showrunner, and she was directing a lot of episodes. She’s also always like, ‘What’s going on? What’s over there?’ So,
Leslie is an assistant district attorney, and as you watch the show, she’s the one that’s like, ‘What the fuck’s going on?
I’m going to figure out what’s happening here. It might be for my own personal interest, but I’m going to figure it out.’ It’s fun to watch, and it’s fun to embody someone who is crossing these boundaries that I would never cross, but she’s doing it for a reason. She cares about her family, and she wants it so much for her family.”

Jacob Got to Share the Screen with an Idol

“If that kid could see me in this ensemble, doing a scene like that with Lisa Kudrow …”

Yet another ideal aspect of working on No Good Deed? Getting the opportunity to work with sitcom legend Lisa Kudrow. Jacobson recalled:

“My dad took me to LA once when I was right around 13. He was here on business and took me, and we took a tour of Warner Bros. and [he] surprised me and took me to an episode of
Friends.
We saw a live taping, and I told her this. I knew Lisa before the show, so I had had time to gush to her, but
I did tell her that seeing
Friends
and seeing how they would fuck around in between and fuck with each other in the best way
, I was like, the process is just as important as the product. They’re having so much fun.”

Jacobson got the opportunity to do just that with Kudrow on the set of No Good Deed. Feldman encourages play on her shows. “She was always like, ‘Make it your own. Let’s try this other stuff.’ You do that after you get it really scripted.” Jacobson continued, “The playing on set creates the environment of play and of collaboration. Everyone just loosens up a little bit. Even if it’s, say, 30% that gets used in it, it will always be worth it because those little nuggets will always stand out.”

One especially exciting opportunity to play popped up during a one-on-one scene Jacobson shares with Kudrow. “This is not in the show, but this was just such a treat for me, and maybe Liz was just doing this for us, but in the last episode, I’m in a scene with just Lisa Kudrow, which is, for me, a top moment as an actor.” Jacobson continued:

“There’s this really serious scene between me and Lisa where she’s coming to me. It’s a pivotal scene, and it gets really sad, but Liz was like, ‘Abbi, just go,’ and there’s this whole long thing where I’m explaining away something and freaking out, and I’m improvising. We got to improvise for a little bit, and that was just the best. Of course, it’s not in there; it shouldn’t be in there because, plot-wise, this is an important scene, and it can’t go all the way over there. So, I don’t know, I think Liz also just got caught up and was like, ‘Do it!’”

Not only did that scene give Jacobson the opportunity to shine with comedy-leaning improv, but it also helped her zero in on a key quality for all actors to have, no matter the genre.

“It was a really big reminder for me of, the more I do this — this is maybe obvious, but again, I’m not a trained actor — I’m best when I just react to the other person. And in this scene, I’m explaining myself, but
I just really wanted to be a good scene partner for Lisa, because that scene takes a really major shift that was very, very difficult
. I was trying to put myself in her shoes, to be honest, because that shift there for her is a really hard performance thing, especially after I just told you Liz was like, ‘But before the shift, Abbi, go off.’ Us doing that is actually making it a little bit harder because it’s making that shift to this really emotional moment come off of a very hard comedy beat. So I think I was really, really aware of that … I was so excited that Lisa was doing this because it’s not as often that you see her play — I mean,
she’s so funny on the show, but she’s also so real, and it’s devastating
. What happens is devastating, and she’s trying to explore what that would feel like. I was just very aware of trying to be a really good scene partner for her in that.”

Jacobson was, indeed, a really good scene partner for Kudrow. In a show packed with unforgettable moments, that particular scene in Episode 8, “Sold,” is a major standout. It’s also one that brought our Collider Ladies Night conversation full circle.

“We began talking about my student council representative duties —
if that kid could see me in this ensemble, doing a scene like that with Lisa Kudrow
. And I feel like I stood my own ground in it. I’m really proud of that.”

Looking for even more on Jacobson’s experience working on No Good Deed and her journey in film and television thus far, including her experiencing powering through the cancellation of A League of Their Own and how she’s inspiring and supporting newer voices in the industry? Be sure to watch our full conversation in the video at the top of this article, or you can listen to the interview in podcast form below:

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No Good Deed

No Good Deed is a dark comedy series created by Liz Feldman for Netflix and stars Ray Romano as Paul Morgan in the lead role. Out of money and at the end of his rope, Paul considers selling his beautiful villa so he can pay his debts off and leave Los Angeles, but as he and two other families soon discover, the past is difficult to outrun.

Release Date

December 12, 2024

Seasons

1

Creator(s)

Liz Feldman

No Good Deed is available to stream on Netflix

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