Biography

He has stated that the audition for Glee (2009) was harder than the audition for Julliard.

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.

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 danced with the Infinity Dance Project during high school.

A big fan of Frank Ocean.

[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.