Exploring Peter Jacobson's Journey from 'House' to 'Smile 2'

I feel like you deserve an award for being on both .

Uh , how , and I , um , or tell them me see , I did go to Brown but I , my grammar stinks , um and uh , you know it was . I wasn't in the , I wasn't in the business of being too picky , whether you know I wasn't like , oh , I got to play a doctor . Um , and it's just . The bottom line is that this doctor on this show was going to be fun .

I mean , obviously house was a huge hit already . I was joining a little bit later , so I knew what , how it was , and obviously I was . You know , it was going to be a doctor on the show with a chance of becoming a regular and the script was so great .

The role was already really compelling and interesting and snarky and somewhat mysterious is too strong of a word , somewhat secretive , and I just loved the role on the page so I was happy he could have been a doctor , a lawyer you know , worked in the Department of Streets and Sanitation . I was happy to play him .

Any actor who's worked a fair amount in TV has a lot of experience coming on as a guest star , which means you know you jump in , like with House , you'd be the patient of the week and that's always sort of a really fun experience on a great show like House I mean , we had so many great actors who wanted to be on it because it was such a well-written

show and it was such a hit . But when come on for one episode , it's really exciting . But there's also a bit of a feeling of disconnect because you're not a regular , you're not as part of it . It's always great fun to do it and it's part of how we make our money and get to play interesting roles .

I had never been joined midstream which is your question and certainly that season was weird . We were given contracts . The four of us who were meant to be the , or the five of us were meant to be the finalists in that weird sort of real life um survivor game and uh , we were told that after nine episodes they would make a decision .

So you knew you had a season to sort of establish , establish yourself , but it was a bit of a of a weird sort of dogfight , I mean in the best way . We were all very had , a lot of fun and loved each other and but we knew it was a weird competition .

Um , and it was certainly intimidating as hell to come on when Hugh , who is just this sort of , you know , wonderful , fabulous actor and comedian and just a great man , but it's , you know , it's a big show at the moment . I think it was the most popular show on the planet at that point and , uh , so there is an intimidation factor .

You don't want to mess things up . You want to try to be part of the gang , but you're not really yet . And eventually , when I made it by then I had a whole season under my belt and so the next season as a regular felt really comfortable and lovely . But it was weird . You're jumping on a barreling freight train . That's already as an actor .

You want that , that . Actually , you want to get on something and and become part of something that's already established hit . But the guy you know , like Omar and Jesse and Jennifer and Lisa and everybody , they , they spent three years making this show . So there's a certain level of gratitude as well .

We like wow , I just kind of got lucky to get on this thing and you obviously hit every mark .

But you can tell as an actor you've been doing it for a while when the writing sort of speaks to you and they got to know me and they were writing to my strengths and I certainly didn't think , oh yeah , I've got this made .

But I felt like the character had really sort of expanded and deepened by the time I got to the point where they were making their choice and I wouldn't have been surprised if I didn't get it . But I wasn't shocked that I got it . It just felt like a real . It was a real good vibe and it felt pretty comfortable .

It felt like the role made sense and sort of the fun stuff that they had going with me and how . You know , hugh , you know how I think more than some , more than a lot of these characters was picked on a lot and that was sort of a really fun thing to play and the writers kind of began to lean into that . Somehow my character just begged to be teased .

I don't know why . Maybe it's me , I think it's me .

So you start your career here in the early 90s , you know , graduating Brown Juilliard , you're from Chicago . What made you want to be an actor ?

Um , and I grew up with him on TV and I would often go with him to work when I was a kid and he'd have to get makeup on and you know there's a certain drama . So you know he was doing live broadcasts and it was an open newsroom back in the 70s in Chicago .

It was sort of this revolutionary idea and so I was sort of always around that and watching him sort of even though he's a journalist perform live and on his feet and having , you know , getting makeup and taking it on and taking it off , and somehow that was something that seemed really , you know , romantic and fun to me as a kid .

So when I knew growing up that I wanted to be an actor , it felt like sort of a natural thing to me . It wasn't like looking so outside the box . And then it was sort of sweet for me when I wound up being a reporter .

It was kind of neat because I was like well , I can remember watching my dad with a microphone in his hand and shoving a microphone in front of people's faces , and that's what I basically did my first two roles .

And then recently this year I played a very pushy reporter on this movie Fly Me to the Moon , and I drew on my knowledge of my dad and watching him for my whole life as a reporter .

I spent you know , seven or eight years acting on the stage and then , as TV work began to come from the West , I began flying out and doing more TV and film . And then TV kind of hit a little bit more and then the house sort of put me in a different place and suddenly I'm doing that instead of theater . I kind of miss it .

It was funny because I wound up working playing her father in this Apple Plus series a couple of years ago and I was too embarrassed to say , hey , about 20 years ago we were in something I didn't think she'd remember . Now I'm your dad but my theater was almost all off-Broadway and somewhat regional .

The difference in Broadway and off-Broadway is that the size of the theater itself if it's two thousand seat house , then your broadway . You get a different pay scale and there's way more off-broadway in new york . But some of the better you know , sort of like um network and cable now we're streaming .

Off-broadway was always a little more experimental and you could push the envelope

a little bit more . Broadway was a little bit more commercially oriented . So I I did a lot of really fun , interesting plays , worked with some great people , was very steeped in the theater community for years in New York and I just loved that .

I mean , that's what I was trained to do , what I thought I would do , but that became my world right out of school .

Ultimately , the process is the same mentally for an actor . You are creating a character , you are in a relationship with somebody , you are learning a script and the circumstances of your scene need to be considered and that's true on stage and on film . But the actual physical experience is so much different on film and TV and your impulses need to be reined in .

You know a big smile for 2000 people on the stage , which is what you need to do . You know you look like an idiot on film If you're doing that , and for the first few years that I was auditioning for things , you know I was auditioning for TV and film while I was on stage , but I had nothing with it .

I think I needed to learn by myself to sort of bring everything down , tone it down , and you can get away with just a thought and a twinkle in the eye and a grin . It sells so much more . The camera picks up everything Plus just .

You know acting with a microphone in your face and you know 50 people in front of you messing with your clothes and you know you have to really learn how to focus in a different way .

But my theater training was all broader , and for the stage and at juilliard back in the late 80s , early 90s they didn't take the time to uh teach you any film acting skills , and so it did . Took me a while to learn how to sort of calm down and not look like a clown I imagine the transition stuff .

They're all just eating out of the palm of your hand and then you act on film and it's like you look , there's a guy eating a sandwich , just looking at you , that's great .

I had the joy of going back to a play after it had been over 10 years . This was about three years ago .

I did this play in LA LA that Ethan Cohn of the Cohn brothers some great filmmakers Ethan is also a playwright , a wonderful playwright , and he did this play as a bunch of one acts and I got to be in that and I had it had been 10 years since I've been on stage and so I had to first sort of remember to generate more energy .

But I had to first sort of remember to generate more energy . But once I got back into the live experience I remembered the joy of that . And you know , when you're rolling on stage and you're getting laughs , it's a completely different experience and you're really out there in a way . You know the cast is sort of always bombed over the terror of acting .

You know you have to rehearse it for a month and , uh , that's a whole different experience than in tv and film , where you don't really get much rehearsal . You kind of jump in . There's something very bonding about the live theater which I missed and it was a real joy to come back to it I don't think I could do live theater .

I have sweated through some pretty scary moments and , weirdly , what I remembered was like I would make sure to go to the bathroom before I went on and , um , you know , I'm not so old , I don't have such a prostate issue that I'd have to go to the bathroom every 30 seconds .

But somehow I would feel like I had to go again like 30 seconds later and whether or not your fly is up , like I could check fly . Maybe this isn't right for your audience , but you check your fly as I'm walking to my entrance . I check it's up , it's good . And then my first thought as I'm walking on four seconds later is is my fly up ?

It's weird paranoia . It's like I know it's up , I just checked it , like it's going to go down on its own . It's just the anxiety of live theater that makes you wonder about your fly .

I never was as worried as you said like that my pants would not be there but certainly whether the flyer would be up , and I understand why you would have that worry , having not sort of you know , but maybe you have acted . Did you act in high school ?

was our third co-host .

They were selling Beetlejuice like Hunch Punch , I guess you could say and the two of them are just getting blitzed out of their mind and I'm normally the stronger Constitution person with drinking , Unfortunately , Based on my collegiate experiences and the two of them were just sloshed and I'm like , damn it , I'm going to go out with you two .

It was like herding cats .

I was in a play where part of it was one of those , a small theater in new york and and you , part of the thing was I would go into the audience and sit with the audience for like a stretch about 40 minutes , and one night I dozed off because I , you know , and I woke up like probably 30 seconds later , but because I had been unconscious .

Essentially I had no idea if I had missed my entrance . To come back onto it , and it was . I just remember the jolt of electricity and air was pretty strong . So , you know , never would occur to me to drink and do that . That would have been even worse , but I know what it's like to be terrified terrified .

As far as , like you , you were on colony , um , because you were on fear , the walking dead , yeah , what made you , you know , did you choose to go towards that , or did your your uh agent just kind of like get you the roles , or is that something you've kind of pursued as more sci-fi or horror genre stuff ?

I also got a chance to be on the Star Wars show , the Ahsoka , for an episode and , yeah , fear the Walking Dead , the script comes your way . I certainly don't say to my agents I won't do this or I want to only do this . They send me hopefully really good roles and good scripts .

And Fear the Walking Dead was already again like with House , was on the air and a hit and had its audience and they were adding characters and this was a really interesting character and I have no problem being on a horror film . You know I had so much fun killing zombies . I mean , I love it . I'm just up .

I'm game for different genres and in Ahsoka I was . You know I had a droid , like a C-3PO droid . It was amazing . I grew up on Star Wars . My son was the next generation of Star Wars and so he was obviously thrilled when I got on that and it's just great .

And Colony was a little bit further ago , but that was a really , really wonderful sci-fi you know future Armageddon kind of show and with aliens , and you know Carlton Hughes and Ryan Condal who's now doing House of the Dragon . These were great writers and they had just had a great concept and I love being in that world .

The best thing about the best sci-fi and horror stuff is , again always like anything grounded in real humans and real relationships .

And Colony , this character I played , was so real and so fun and you know I tried to make my the rabbi and fear the walking dead as real as I could be and the writing was great and I got to stab and shoot zombies along the way . So I loved it .

I think I bring a certain sort of levity to a lot of situations and they start to use that to their advantage in the scenes and in sort of the mix of characters in the house . And , yeah , I found that that sort of

became a calling card is a hard thing to say because you just never know in this business . Suddenly you know I'm being a clown and next thing I'm , you know , only doing drama .

But I would say if there's , yeah , if there's one theme that has stuck for me with characters over the years , it's that yeah , I can bring kind of a light , fun , devilish something to a very serious situation and I don't know what that says about me .

he's like you could tell he's nervous , so he's kind of like a little fidgety yeah yeah , yeah , that I believe me .

There's some dramatic events as the series winds to a close , and I am indeed swept up in that .

You know he's being a rabbi alone and that he's struggling . This is the good part as an actor , that he really was struggling with the tragedy of losing his whole .

What you would say in the church is Paris , I guess , his whole community Congregation , yeah , his congregation , his whole community , and that's sort of the yeah , it's congregation , exactly , thanks , oh , my grandmother would be so upset I needed to ask if that works .

Um , but yeah , and the great reveal in that episode is that you know he's all by himself and all of his congregation are zombies in the back room and uh . So , yeah , taping that was , uh , both physically and mentally , was a really fun thing to play .

My dad was a bat boy for the Cubs in 1952 , which is a pretty cool thing as a Chicagoan so I do feel very connected to

baseball and the Cubs . But I'm a huge sports fan . So anytime again , like with , you know , with sci-fi , getting to kill zombies , that's a really fun thing to do . Playing anything with sports is fun for me to do .

I just auditioned for Billy Crystal when I , you know , just liked everybody else and somehow he , you know , latched on to me a bit and , you know , and thought I'd be good in this part . Again , a reporter , a pushy reporter , so maybe I've got that in my blood . He saw that and I went through the audition process and just got it .

I was , you know , I was so thrilled because , you know , we were out at the LA Coliseum shooting these sports scenes . And then in Detroit , at the old Comiskey

not Comiskey , that's my Chicago , that's White Sox the old Tiger Stadium which had been abandoned but they gussied it up to be the old Yankee Stadium and it was just great . Yogi Berra came to the set . Mickey Mantle's family and Billy Crystal was so passionate about that movie .

You know , it was right at the time when McGuire I guess McGuire and Sosa had just , you know , broken the records a season or two before , and so that was , you know , it was a great , great . I mean , that's probably my . It was my first sort of decent , decent role in a film and I was in heaven the whole time .

I love sports , I love baseball , and so to be around that was just a total joy . I loved it . And then so , yeah , it's a movie that people really connected to . I mean , billy just knew what he was doing and it was his greatest love . I mean he's a huge Yankee fan and it was great , I also . His all , his daughter , jenny Jenny Holy , she was in it .

She played Roger Maris's wife . So we , jenny Foley , she was in it , she played Roger Maris' wife . So we sort of crossed paths a little bit in that movie . And then years later she played my wife on that , which was really fun .

Uh , no , I recognize her , so yeah we did this movie . Like who are you ? No , no , no , I think she did . She remembered Because we had this like three days of doing this long restaurant scene with Jack Nicholson . She and I didn't really have any lines . He was reacting to us , we were you know , in this character as good as it gets .

She was nominated for an Oscar for he just cropped the old man . He's anti-Semitic and we're , these two Jewish people at the table and he's , you know , saying these anti-Semitic things and we just had to really react .

It was a fun scene but it was a long scene that we shot over a few days and we got to sort of sit there with Jack Nicholson for a couple days . There's a lot of downtime . He's so great and was just so lovely and warm and open and telling us about his life .

No one ever saw him , they pop out .

And then people like me who , well , I feel like I have a fabulous career but I'm more of a journeyman , and you know , I mean , not everybody knows who I am and I can't just , you know , I'm not making movies , getting movies made on my own .

And then there are those who I've worked with who have struggled more to , you know , to have a regular career , and all actors , and I think on most levels , rarely feel like they've made it .

That's a part of it , for sort of one of the weird tricky things in this business where you make it for a certain amount of time and then you don't , because you know you can get hot or you can for , for whatever reason , you work for two straight years and then suddenly you're not working and there's no real logic to it .

So I felt there's been markers in my career over the years when I felt like , wow , I certainly have been bumped up to another level and I think there is an overarching growth to my career , which I feel very blessed about and love it , and I work steadily and that's great .

But along the way , I would say things like house or 61 was probably one of those moments where I thought , whoa , I'm moving up . You know , I I've never . Maybe it's just my anxious personality . I never feel like boy . I've made it , um , you know , and I don't know what making it really means .

If having a career and making a living is making it , then yeah , I've done that . But in terms of being like a star or somebody who can generate projects on my own with my name power , then I've got a ways to go . Still , cars 2 was one of those weird moments where I was on House and I got the offer . I didn't even audition .

Doing a Pixar film was fabulous . They knew who I was . People at Pixar put me and joe montagna together as these two sort of funny bad guys and if I got the script , I was like wow , yes , like you want to do this , I'm like uh , yeah and uh .

But the fact that I didn't audition felt like , oh , you know , I I have made it to a certain level here I'm getting offered a pixar . That's a wonderful thing . So , um , you know , but it goes up and down . When I'm not working for six months , eight months or a year , for whatever reason , I you know , at night I'm like , oh , have I really made it ?

And then , when I auditioned for him and put him on his feet and was called back to meet the director and read it with him , I just felt like this guy fits me really well and I and I love his , just the depth and the sadness and the anxiety of him and he's sort of an odd duck in this world because you know , he's not .

I'm a bit of an outsider in this movie . Now , honestly , I'm not a . You know I had not seen the first one and I'm not a horror film fanatic . I love a good movie and a good scary movie , but I had to go ahead and watch the first one when I was auditioning , before I got the role .

I went and watched the first one and I was absolutely terrified , but in a good way . And you know , I know the difference between schlock and great filmmaking and this again , it's not something that I'm pro at in terms of horror .

But I knew right away that this guy , parker Finch , this guy knows how to make a movie and I think that's what happened for him .

He's a young guy who did this independent or short film that some that people saw , or Paramount did it , and suddenly it was a bit of a discovery , like wow , this guy really knows what he's doing and you can tell when you're in the hands of a filmmaker .

And just watching Smile 1 , the original Smile , I was like just the movie angles , the shots , the way he moves the camera . I was like this is a different kind of horror movie and that's saying something because , believe me , the market is saturated with horror films and it's hard to break out . And he broke out with this , and rightfully so , I think .

And so I was excited that this was a good movie and I think the script was great and sure enough doing it . You know you're with a filmmaker who knows what he's doing and even if terror and horror and gore and shock is not my strong suit , at least in terms of my experience , it's great fun and I love doing this new kind of movie .

And you know Naomi Scott was unbelievable . She's this young woman , she's British . I didn't know , I mean I knew her from . I guess she'd been in a Disney movie . But you know she's also

a fabulous singer and you know our stuff was all together .

I just had my stuff with her and she was such a pro and so good and carrying the film on her shoulders so I was just like , wow , I'm going along for this great ride and it's so scary and so fun and uh was thrilled to be on it well , from a lot of the early reviews that I've kind of read over .

It's not a naturalistic piece of work . But no matter how heightened or scary or crazy something is , it's always successful . The rule of thumb has to be that you believe these people and you believe their situations and that comes from well-written characters in honest relationships and really well-acted .

And he knows how to get a good performance out of somebody and he knows how to set real situations that we as the audience are going to get drawn into . So you've got real people . I remember Stacey Bacon in the first movie was fabulous . I mean , she sustained this terror for two hours and I was like that is a . That was a real feat .

And you don't do that without a great director , a great script , great writing and great crew and great fellow actors . And so Parker's gathering this group for the first movie and he just hit it out of the park . It's a very real . What's unique is totally real , real people doing real things in a very unreal situation .

So the creepy is deep , because you're relating to these people , I mean . So she was just so real and yet she's got this insane situation happening . And he's done it again , parker , with the second one , just on a higher scale . Just everything's elevated , it's universal Now . It's just much . It's just much bigger and scarier and more terrifying for more people .

And I think you could go forever with this thing .

And then I haven't seen the second one yet , but I've seen the trailer for it and it feels like it does a lot more with psych , like your psychology , as opposed to just what jumps out at you in this one right and that's the difference , you know when you're watching a movie .

And Parker is smarter than that and has combined and there are great horror films and they all do this . They're jump scares , but they are even jumpier and scarier if you are connected to the people and the situation and the relationships .

He's really taken the time to do that , to make sure these are real people , and so that's going to make the jump scare even greater . And I just think he knows that instinctively . And yes , in Smile 2 , there are more , but they work because you are even that much more invested in the people in this film .

it's too late . So you know , we know from the first movie this unbelievably malevolent and sinister force , um , and I somehow , as knowledge and information , I'm going to try to help her through this Um and uh , that's , that's what I can say .

But the film is uh , the film itself is relentless and it's in this air and in this scare and in this sinister force . And what's sort of sweet about my character is that there's a little bit of a calm . He's there to help , and that's part of what turned me on about the role .

I was like , wow , this movie is terrifying and yet I felt right away how real my guy is . Morris is a very real man who's been through a lot and he's there to help . I like the sort of sweet humanity of that in this terrifying situation .

So I'm interested to see how , because , like in the trailer , you see her doing like her dancing on stage , and then like she sees somebody on the stage with her and there's one where , like she's in her dressing room and the guy's not there , and then she looks in the mirror and he's there .

As a filmmaker , you don't always know what's real when you're in a human's head of not knowing what's real . That's terrifying , and it's not just a jump scare . Is that real or not ? You're coming at it from the character's perspective and that's terrifying .

Let me tell you what was scary was Naomi , because she's so committed and she's so real in this role and she's so good that when you're playing the scene , that terror is real . I'm watching a young woman that terrified and that's Naomi is an actress and she's fabulous .

But you know , when they say cut , yeah , you've got to get 200 people around you and you might get hit in the ear and then somebody you know picking their nose in the corner and we're back to work . So it didn't really scare me . The scariest part was that because the lighting was also really great .

I mean Parker , he's got a great team and this is a terrifying-looking film . There were a couple moments when I couldn't find my mark in the dark . I was scared of that . I wasn't scared of the dark , I was scared I was not going to hit my mark and then we've got to do it again and then I'm pissing everybody off . So that was a scary moment .

Looking at all these people you've obviously acted with , I have one question and I know everybody's probably like well , you guys are going to talk about House , you guys are probably going to talk about Hugh Laurie and I know people who have thought Hugh Laurie was actually an American .

But , knowing what I know , he's English and you see him in house , you know serious to sardonic , sarcastic witty , and then you watch him in blackadder and he's just a bumbling imbecile . Yeah , and you want well , hugh is go ahead . I'm sorry , is he like that ? Which version , I guess , would you say , is he like normally ?

I mean not dramatist , he's not a writer , he's an exceptional comedian and an exceptional dramatist . I mean not dramatist , he's not a writer , he's an exceptional dramatic actor . And House was . Again , he brought his twinkle to House , who is a very dramatic role . But you know as well what made him so successful is that he brings his comedy to it .

But the comedy comes after the reality and that's what makes him so funny . Hugh , as a person , is the funniest and smartest person you'll meet . He's very serious and he had a huge show to make work and we all knew we were doing that .

The bar was set incredibly high and at the same time he's the most clever and funniest person you'll ever meet , at any moment . That was there . So it was sort of a big jumble of Hugh talent and just a joy to be with .

But you don't have a show like that that successful with a dick at the helm ? You can't . You know , number one on the coffee . You've got to set the tone and you've got to . You know you're essentially . You know , I mean he's not writing the thing , but he's running the thing . It's his show and it's his .

Uh , it's his game and um , and if he's not pleasant and wonderful , then everybody's miserable . For eight years , and he was fantastic . I mean , we look , it's a , it's a family and it's a rigorous bit of work . And so over the years that I was on it , there are moments when you know there are tantrums and there are .

You know things happen serious , not serious . There are . You know things happen serious , not serious , but you know it's hard work .

And so there are certainly stressful moments , but all of it was uh , ultimately , you know , you have to have people in charge who are people at the top , who are setting the tone and doing it right and and are friendly and loving and caring , and uh , and that's you would you always ?

He was on Walker Texas Ranger and he got to meet Chuck Norris and fight him and get his butt kicked by Chuck Norris . He's like the whole time I was just smiling , he's roundhouse , kicking me in the face . I'm like this is great , it's Chuck .

It's never , I was never without , even though he becomes your friend . There was . There were so many moments when I was like , wow , I am sure lucky getting to do this with you , this is you , this is house and I'm doing it . It's great fun .

But then even something like with jack Nicholson , where I hardly I don't really have any lines , and it's only a few days . Yeah , I was lucky , I didn't have lines because I wouldn't be able to remember , because I was with Jack Nicholson .

Yeah , I mean , I don't know , maybe I'm distracted , but it's rare that you can find an actor who can be that focused , that you don't have that moment where you're like , well , I'm doing this to Robert De Niro . I mean , come on , I'm not , I'm a human and it's intimidating .

It's sort of a small independent feature , so it's fun to go from sort of the big-budget thing to the small-budget thing , but nothing big on the scale of Smile . So for me at the end of 24 , smile's the thing and I hope that people are still watching it at the end of the year .