Gillian MacLaren Jacobs (born October 19, 1982) is an American film, theater, and television actress, best known for the role of Britta Perry in the NBC comedy series Community.

Jacobs was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Martina Magenau Jacobs, was director of alumni relations at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. Her father, William F. Jacobs Jr., was an investment banker. She grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mount Lebanon. She has French, German, Irish, and Scottish roots. Her family owned the Jackson Koehler Eagle Brewery, founded in 1847 in Erie, Pennsylvania, where her grandfather, John Martin Magenau Jr., was president and CEO until it closed in 1978.

Jacobs began studying acting at the age of eight and as a child attended acting classes on Saturdays at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. She performed at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, where she was a regular participant in the Public's Shakespeare monologue competition, which led to her being cast as Titania in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. After graduating from Mount Lebanon High School in 2000, Jacobs moved to New York, New York, to attend the Juilliard School, where she was a member of the Drama Division's Group 33. She received a bachelor's degree in 2004.