Biography
Mini Biography
Jacob Artist was born on October 17, 1992 to Darrell and Judith Artist. Artist is African-American and Polish decent. He grew up in New York dancing when he was accepted into Julliard but turned it down to pursue his acting career. In 2012, he was cast as Jake Pukerman in Glee with his singing and dancing abilities. Following the finale of Glee, Artist went on to take the role of Brandon Fletcher on ABC's Quantico. Artist has made a guest appearance on American Horror Story.
Trivia
A native of New York, who began his professional acting career in 2011 with an episode on Bucket and Skinner's Epic Adventures (2011).
He is the son of Judith L. (Swistak) and Darrell Artist. Jacob's father is African-American, while Jacob's maternal grandparents were both of Polish descent.
His favorite Disney movie is Hercules (1997).
A big fan of Frank Ocean.
He danced with the Infinity Dance Project during high school.
He has stated that the audition for Glee (2009) was harder than the audition for Julliard.
Did a group dance for the Talent show in Middle School titled "give it all you got" where he danced as a group and a duet.
Quotes
[on getting accepted into Julliard and turning it down for an acting career] I just kept asking myself "Jacob, if you go to Juilliard and carry on with the rest of your life, can you really live with yourself not knowing what would have happened if you went to LA?" And I knew I couldn't. Initially my parents were pretty shocked. After all, I was telling my parents I was turning down Juilliard and changing my whole future all in one conversation! But my family has always been incredible in supporting me in whatever I wanted to do and it didn't take them long to see I was genuinely passionate about this.
[on shooting on After the Dark (2013) in Indonesia] It was my first time ever overseas and it was hands down one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Just being in a brand new country with twenty other kids my age and experiencing that all together for the first time was so special. Those are the memories I'll be telling my grand kids about. I think people are really going to enjoy the movie. It's a very fresh and cool take on the whole apocalypse genre. You get to chronicle everything through twenty philosophy students and see how this adventure plays out with such an interesting group dynamic. Conceptually I think it separates itself as not just another teen sci-fi/fantasy movie.
[on getting the role on Glee (2009)] I was actually sitting down for dinner with a group of friends when I got the phone call. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to tell anyone until the next day, so I had to contain all this overwhelming excitement. It was probably the best acting I've ever done in my life because not one of my friends could tell something was up.
Girls love guys who dance, and I'm definitely going to be the first one on the dance floor. Usually, you just see guys sitting around, but I definitely don't hold back when it comes to dancing. I like to keep [my dancing] toned down initially. It's a lot of snapping first off, just to get a feeling
I could show you a picture right now where I look like something from The Hills Have Eyes (2006). Talk about an awkward stage. Puberty was not good at all.
It's bizarre. In middle school, I thought girls were running away from me, so when they ask for a picture now, I'm like, 'Really, what?'
[on sharing a name with his character on Glee (2009)] People were like, "Did they change it at the very end because you were cast?" And I was like, "No, absolutely not. It's been Jake from day one." It must have been meant to be, because it's so funny that we share the same name. When I first I auditioned, I didn't even know I was auditioning for this part. And as things kind of got going, they said that I would be reading for Puck's little brother. I immediately fell in love with the part. I was just like, "I would love, love, love to do this."
I never really acted. I grew up dancing, actually. That was always my thing. I was a competition kid, so I did competitions in convention (centers) all over the country. I kind of had the bug, I would say, maybe when I was 15. It was just something that I wanted to dive a little deeper in. And I didn't really pursue it until I was graduating high school and I decided that I wanted to move to L.A. to act. It was good. My move out west was fairly easy. I moved out there with my dad. He came with me for the first few months because I was still actually 17 at the time. It was interesting because, right prior to that, I actually I got accepted into Julliard for dance in my senior year of high school. So I was kind of up in the air figuring things out. But then ultimately my gut was just like, "You've got to go to L.A. You have to try this acting thing out."
