|
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
At age seventeen, Joanie Evans was living on welfare in a government assisted apartment block just outside of Oakland, California with her own mother. A pregnancy was the last thing she needed, but it was where she ended up. The father wasn't much better off, an immature twenty year old who bounced between factory jobs and bars, named Brian McCann. Abandoning any hope of further education or opportunity, Joanie left home for an apartment in Alameda with her boyfriend to await the birth of their child. On December 31st, 1988 at three in the afternoon their daughter, Jillian Annette McCann, was born. Day to day life for the family was a financial struggle from the beginning, and the problem was only further exacerbated when Brian picked up and walked out when Jill was only eight months old. Following her father's departure, Jillian and her mother moved to Modesto, CA where they lived with her mother's grandmother until Jill was old enough to talk. Her mother worked primarily as a waitress during that time, and while they were by no means wealthy, Jilliane remembers having a relatively normal early childhood thanks largely to the influence of her great-grandmother.
When Jillian was 4, she and her mother moved back out on their own and into an apartment in San Jose. Joanie quit waitressing for the more lucrative career of pole and lapdancing, a subject that's still very sensitive in the family and has been a topic of discussion in the media. Shortly after Jill turned five, she discovered that her mother was pregnant again with one of her string of low-life boyfriends, and a few months later her baby brother was born. Around this same time, her biological father who she saw sporadically but fairly often was sentenced to time in prison for grand theft auto. Brian went on to spend the majority of Jillian's childhood in and out of prison for various drug related offenses. In large part due to the circumstances that they were both forced to endure, Jill has always felt extremely protective of her little brother, and in many ways was forced to be a mother to him since their actual mom was so often absent. As a result Jill has always been surprisingly mature and responsible for her age. Despite everything, she keeps in touch with every member of her family and does her best to help support them financially. She plans to move her now 18 year old brother down to Los Angeles with her when he graduates high school next year.
Jillian's own high school experience was less than stellar. Throughout her entire educational tenure, she never spent more than three years at the same school. High school was even less stable; she only attended three years before dropping out and attended a new place each year, even switching twice in her freshman year. After her junior year Jillian still had nearly two years worth of credits to earn before graduating, and instead of sticking it out, Jill decided to give up and head out for the bright lights of Hollywood. She moved in with an older friend from school and started working odd jobs at places like In N Out and the concession stand at the Hollywood Archlight - it was there that she was discovered by an agent who saw something special in her almost childlike face. At first he tried to book her modeling jobs but she was only able to land low-paying local print ads. She fared slightly better in commercials, but not much. It was almost by accident that she fell into acting, in an audition for a commercial that she didn't even land her agent saw a real potential for acting and was able to convince her to enroll in classes. Her slightly off beat appearance and abrasive personality was met with much more acceptance in the artistic world of the acting community than the literal, corporate run world of advertising and Jillian felt almost immediately at home.
The road to success was definitely not paved for her and she proudly scrapped her way through auditions and call backs and lessons until she finally began to get work, at first in short films and then bit parts in feature lengths and finally a role working for the pinnacle of television, HBO. Everything came so fast and furious that she barely had time to soak it all in, and in 2010 with the release of The Kids Are Alright, her world was truly flipped on its head. To be in a film nominated for an Oscar for best picture, to be attending the Oscars at only 22 when 5 years before she'd been toiling away at a local ice cream shop in San Jose seemed like something that would happen to someone else. She worked hard and it paid off, but it was still hard for her to believe. After the film's success, roles came much easier. She was seen as a serious actress and landed coveted roles, not just white trash from NoCal anymore, she began to etch out a name for herself in Hollywood consciousness.
In early 2011 she moved out on her own for the first time, renting a condo in West Hollywood, though most of the year will be spent in travel. Despite all of her success she still identifies as an outsider, a relative loner who is difficult to get to know and even harder to understand. Instead of worrying about that, though, she just concentrates on the next audition, and on making sure that she doesn't lose all of the things that she's worked so hard to build.
|
