A Star is Born

by Emily Raij

When asked what they want to be when they grow up, most kids have a pretty specific answer. But for 12-year-old actor Jacob Laval, he just knew he wanted to work – and right away.

“I always wanted a job when I was younger,” says the Orlando native, who currently lives in New York City and recently starred as Seldon Wishnow in HBO’s limited series, The Plot Against America. “I wanted to do every single job I saw other people doing.”

His mother Shari concurs, remembering Jacob’s precocious response when she and her husband Michael got their son a delivery driver outfit in an attempt to quell his craving for a career. “He said, ‘This is just pretend. I really want to work.’” 

While Jacob may not have wanted to play dress-up then, he eventually discovered pretending could be a real job. And he had a knack for it. In 2012, the Laval family moved from their home near Hunters Creek in Orlando to New York in order to be closer to Jacob’s older brother and sister, who were attending college there. Shari and Michael initially enrolled Jacob in acting classes to help him gain self-confidence and correct a speech issue. 

“When he started going to those classes, we began to realize he was actually a pretty good actor,” says Shari.

She and Michael, who was previously a photographer for the West Orange Times, started a private photography business,  Laval Photography, when they moved to New York. A client of theirs was working as an extra and suggested job-loving Jacob do the same. The summer after second grade, Jacob did just that and even booked a commercial.

“I started wanting to get even more important parts, and I remember this director agreed,” says Jacob.

The commercial’s director recognized Jacob should be “up front,” as they say in the business, and suggested he get a manager. Shari sent Jacob’s photo to a few agencies, and Take 3 Talent quickly signed him. After about a year of auditions, Jacob started booking bigger parts, including a role in the movie Team Marco, acting in episodes of Happy and Jessica Jones, and performing in the hour-long Netflix variety special John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, which featured musical numbers, comedy, and appearances from actors like Jake Gyllenhaal.

In October of last year, Jacob made his Broadway debut in The Rose Tattoo. Although it was exciting to do a Broadway show, the hours were long, especially on top of going to school or being tutored in between rehearsals.

“Broadway was fun,” says Jacob, “but the schedule was hard doing eight shows a week.”

Working on The Plot Against America had a much better schedule. Jacob especially loved going to on-location shoots in the Catskills and New Jersey. The show premiered on HBO in March and is based on Philip Roth’s novel of the same name. It focuses on the Levins, a working-class, Jewish family living in Newark, New Jersey, in 1940 and tells an alternate history about what might have happened if aviator Charles Lindbergh were elected president of the United States in 1940 instead of incumbent Franklin Roosevelt winning his third term.

Lindbergh runs on the “America First” platform of keeping the U.S. out of World War II but is soon shown to be a Nazi sympathizer, fueling anti-Semitism and Ku Klux Klan violence throughout the country. The lives of the Levins and Jews all over the U.S. are forever changed, with Seldon’s family experiencing incredible loss.

The show has received critical acclaim and Emmy buzz. It stars Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, and John Turturro, but performances from Jacob and the other child actors stand out.

“One of my favorite parts of acting is getting to be put in situations that I never thought I’d be in,” says Jacob.

Even though he recognized that Seldon had very different life experiences and was less independent and extroverted than he is, Jacob found some common ground.

“I did relate to him a lot,” he says. “There are a lot of similarities. Seldon likes chess, he’s also Jewish. He was more quiet than I am. Seldon is very introverted. I consider myself a moderate, which is in the middle.”

To get into character, Jacob said he would try to be alone and focus on becoming more serious and quiet, like Seldon.

Jacob has one other favorite when it comes to acting: the food!

“On The Plot Against America and The Sack Lunch Bunch, they had this steak,” Jacob recalls. “If you know me, I love meat. So you know I chowed that down fast!”

Jacob reports catering for The Sack Lunch Bunch also included cake every day. Lucky for the young star, he’ll get to enjoy all that food again as the show was renewed for two more episodes by Comedy Central.

Some of Jacob’s projects have been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, but he has been staying busy with chess camp as well as filming and sending video shout-outs through the Cameo app, which lets fans pay to chat with or send personal messages to friends or family from celebrities. Jacob has done more than 150 shout-outs, including birthday wishes and pep talks for healthcare workers on the front lines, and he donates the money he earns to different causes.

Jacob has also been doing some virtual auditions. Disney recently hosted an open call via Zoom auditions and picked Jacob and five other kids for future projects.

“In mid-March, he was scheduled to be doing a Christmas movie of all things!” laughs Shari, who explains that while she is Jewish, her husband only recently discovered his Jewish roots. 

“My husband’s father was always wondering why Jacob got cast as Jewish characters. We gave him an ancestry test for Christmas, and he discovered he was more than 50 percent Jewish. We always joke around that Jacob looks just like his dad, but the Jewish version.”

It’s clear the Lavals share lots of laughs together when it comes to the acting life. Jacob’s movie, Team Marco is still looking for distribution, so “we joke that when that comes out, I’ll be in my late stages of puberty,” grins Jacob. 

Jacob’s humor and talent are sure to keep him acting for a long time, and he offers some positive advice to other actors:

“If you go do a bunch of auditions for a really long time and don’t book any parts, you shouldn’t give up,” he says. “At some point, your part will come around. No matter what, you shouldn’t give up.”