Mixing Art, Life

When actress Maggie Jakobson met film director Henry Jaglom in New York three years ago, she was breaking up with her boyfriend and heading for Los Angeles. “I wanted to get away--from (her boyfriend) and from everything,” she says.

Jaglom cast her in a small role in his next film, “Someone to Love,” got to know her better, then asked her to play a lead in “New Year’s Day,” his romantic voyage of Angst and self-discovery. Jaglom also asked Jakobson to incorporate elements from her life in her character.

Thus, both Lucy--whom she plays--and Jakobson make a living doing voices for TV cartoon shows, have taught a chimpanzee sign language and have swum with dolphins in Florida. “The line between reality and fiction when you work with Henry can get very blurry,” Jakobson says with a laugh.

But when Jaglom suggested her ex-boyfriend, David Duchovny, play Lucy’s promiscuous lover, Jakobson firmly said no. Then she reconsidered.

“It was liberating to recreate scenes with David. By that time, I had a significant amount of distance. I could look back at where I’d been with relief and humor.”

Reaction by audiences and critics to her performance--”luminous” one enraptured reviewer called it--has prompted Jakobson to move here permanently from her native New York. It’s already paying off. She landed a guest-starring role in an “L.A. Law” episode, playing a dying attorney.

Playing oneself, or someone very close to oneself, requires a sophisticated technique. And Jakobson emphasizes that “I’ve been acting long enough, since I was 16. This movie came at a time where I had arrived at a certain level of self-understanding.”

Jakobson has a considerable theatrical background--”sometimes way off Broadway and sometimes not so far”--and was a regular on Lorne Michael’s 1985 TV comedy-variety series, “The New Show.” Her movie debut would have come in 1983 in Sidney Lumet’s “Daniel,” but a subplot was cut--along with her role.

Now she’s unpacking boxes and settling into her Fairfax District apartment. “Police cars and ambulances run up and down La Brea all night,” she says. “So, it feels just like home.”