November 16, 2017
Jaclyn Collier is hungry. Not in the way you get hungry for lunch at 10 a.m., but hungry in the way you have to be to achieve your dreams. It’s something she learned as a student at Susquehanna.
“One of the biggest things [theatre professor] Erik Viker encouraged us to do was something acting-related every summer,” Collier remembered.
It led her to spend her summers entertaining at an amusement park, an opera company and children’s theaters in New Jersey and Kentucky.
“I wasn’t getting paid much, but I got in my head that hustle mode of always looking for the next thing,” Collier said.
She’s been hustling ever since. Collier graduated from SU in 2008 and earned her MFA from the University of Houston. She is currently writing and starring in the web series This is My Roommate, with Russell Daniels—her real-life roommate. Episodes are available on YouTube.
“It’s about two roommates who are living together and trying to navigate life in a city and their relationship, which becomes increasingly complicated,” Collier said. “It came as an idea when Russell and I were at a wedding together and sort of frustrated with where we were socially and career-wise in the city.”
Collier is also appearing in the comedic play Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man at 777 Theatre. Her character is Robyn, the shy and studious professor-moderator of Meet the Authors, which features Dan Anderson, author of Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man. Dan aims to turn the event upside down with a highly theatrical, audience interactive sex tip seminar.
Collier joined the off-Broadway production after touring the country with the play last year. Included among her other acting credits are Awesome 80s Prom, My Big Gay Italian Funeral, and I Hope They Serve Beer on Broadway. She recently filmed an episode of HBO’s The Deuce, starring James Franco. Collier is also half of the comedy duo, Girlcrush.
Her advice to new actors is simple—stay hungry.
“I’ve seen so much good acting, but I can always tell if they lost their hunger,” Collier said. “Whatever path you choose, dive 100 percent into it. I don’t know where I would be without that.”