The Untold Truth Of Gilded Age Star (And Meryl Streep's Daughter) Louisa Jacobson

When "Downton Abbey" creator Julian Fellowes set his next project in 1880s New York City, he assembled the cast of "The Gilded Age" with a combination of well-established actors and some new faces. In the former camp, "Sex and the City" alum Cynthia Nixon and Christine Baranski of "The Good Fight" as sisters Ada Forte and Agnes van Rhijn, respectively, with both actors boasting extensive credits onscreen and onstage (Nixon has won two Tony Awards, as has Baranski).

For the central role of Marian Brook — the sisters' niece who moves into their Manhattan mansion after being orphaned — Fellowes chose an unknown: Louisa Jacobson. A swing through her IMDb page — as of September 2025, at least — reveals just three screen credits: "The Gilded Age," a bit part in a 2019 TV movie called "Gone Hollywood," and a supporting role in 2025 feature "The Materialists."

Of course, this rookie actor is hardly a neophyte when it comes to Hollywood. Her mother is none other than the legendary, ever-transforming Meryl Streep, who's won three Oscars out of a staggering 21 nominations. In fact, Jacobson's sisters, Mamie and Grace Gummer, are also actors. So just who is this talented up-and-comer with a prestigious pedigree? To find out, read on to discover the untold truth of "Gilded Age" star (and Meryl Streep's daughter) Louisa Jacobson.

The first question that typically arises about Louisa Jacobson is about her surname. If her mom is Hollywood heavyweight Meryl Streep, and her dad is artist Don Gummer, and her older brother and two sisters — Henry, Mamie, and Grace — share their father's last name, then where the heck does Jacobson come from? There are some confusing, strange celebrity name changes out there, but this one can be easily clarified.

As it turns out, there was already an actor named Louisa Gummer, who hails from Britain and specializes in voiceovers. Due to a Screen Actors Guild rule requiring that each actor have a unique name, she decided to use Jacobson — her middle name — professionally. In an offscreen capacity, however, she continues to go by Louisa Jacobson Gummer, the name she was born with.

That surname switcheroo places her in some pretty good company. Other actors who were forced to change their names to abide by that same rule include Michael J. Fox (he added the J. because there was already a SAG member named Michael Fox), and Michael Keaton, who chose a new surname because his birth name is Michael Douglas — a name that, quite famously, already belonged to another well-known actor.

As the daughter of award-winning actor Meryl Streep and renowned artist Don Gummer, it shouldn't be surprising that Louisa Jacobson and her three older siblings were raised in a home where creativity was both prized and nurtured. Interviewed by Who What Wear in 2025, Jacobs reflected on her rarified upbringing. "It was such a gift to be surrounded by artists from a young age in my household," she said.

Not surprisingly, her interest in performing blossomed early, with Jacobson and her siblings putting on their own shows in their home, mirroring the professional performances they were being taken to see. "We would charge for tickets and have an audience," she recalled in an interview with Elle. "It was so cool to be a kid and have the rapt attention of adults."

Streep — whose life story has been largely untold despite her global fame — shared her remembrance of those shows at a 2016 Telegraph Bespoke event (via The Telegraph), recalling that her kids' childhood productions were actually pretty grueling to sit through. "These plays were extremely serious," the mother of the four said. "There were only two rules: you couldn't laugh, and you couldn't leave. And they were very long."

Louisa Jacobson was born in Los Angeles and was just under 2 years old when her family relocated to the East Coast, settling in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. Looking back on those childhood days, Jacobson's memories are nothing short of idyllic. "We lived in the country, so there was plenty of room to run around and play. That let my imagination run free," she recalled in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

That pastoral life in the country, however, came to a screeching halt at 9 years old when her parents decided to move to New York City, purchasing a multi-million-dollar townhome in Greenwich Village. She was decidedly not happy about making that move. "I was furious about relocating to a place with few trees," Jacobson said. "I drew in my journal pictures of a skyline with a big circle and a slash through it. My parents understood, validated my feelings and then we moved to New York, into a townhouse."

While she was initially displeased with transplanting from a bucolic country life to the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, as she grew older, she ultimately realized she was presented a rare opportunity to experience two different worlds. "It was this perfect combination of being a kid in the countryside, and then it was great to have my adolescence in the city," she told Into the Gloss.

Among Meryl Streep's many onscreen triumphs has been the ABBA-inspired movie-musical, "Mamma Mia!" Interestingly, Streep may not have taken the role of mama Donna — which has arguably become one of her most iconic — had it not been for daughter Louisa Jacobson.

According to Streep (as reported by Daily Record), in celebration of Jacobson's birthday in 2001, she took "six screaming 11-year-olds" to see "Mamma Mia!" on Broadway. "I thought it would be fun for them." It was, but proved to be even more so for Streep herself, who wound up dancing and singing along with the youngsters. In fact, Streep enjoyed the performance so much that she wrote a letter of appreciation to the cast, which wound up making its way to the show's writers and producers. "People were standing on their seats and dancing in the aisles," she recalled in an interview with Vogue. "It was fantastic, and anything that can deliver that much joy always deserves a place in the world."

When Hollywood beckoned a few years later, and plans began firming up to adapt the stage musical for the screen, Streep was approached about starring. Recalling the moment for Vogue, Streep remembered her agent calling her up to run through some various film offers. "They all sounded very heavy and serious," Streep said, "and then at the end of the call he said, 'Oh, and I almost forgot to mention — you're probably gonna laugh — but the people from "Mamma Mia!" want you. I'll let them know it's a pass.' I perked up and said, 'Oh, God, no, I wanna do that!'"

While her mother's success left Louisa Jacobson with firsthand knowledge that becoming a successful actor is something that could realistically be achieved, she also knew that her first forays into that profession would be met with skepticism — due to the simple fact that her mother is Meryl freakin' Streep. No matter what she did, she realized she would always be placed in comparison to her mom, who is regarded to be one of the — if not THE — finest actors of her generation.

This initially led her to consider some alternate career paths, but the lure of acting ultimately proved to be undeniable. "[I knew] that if I chose my passion, which was acting, there would be many, many people who would feel like I didn't deserve it," she opened up to Elle. "Grappling with that is kind of difficult, but it's just part of what it is to be a nepo baby."

As Jacobson told Tatler, that reality has become something that she's chosen to embrace, rather than fight with futility. "It's going to be a constant thing throughout my life," she admitted, but then pointed to others from similarly privileged backgrounds who were able to establish successful Hollywood careers that were independent from their famous parents, such as actor Jane Fonda and director Sofia Coppola. "I think it just takes time and not reading Twitter and just focusing on what I want to achieve as an artist," she mused.

It's true that Meryl Streep has had quite the transformation over the years, and the same can be said for daughter Louisa Jacobson. Like her sisters, Jacobson inherited her mother's striking looks — particularly her distinctive high cheekbones. After graduating from Vassar College in 2013 with a major in psychology, she was signed by a modeling agency, New York-based IMG Models. As a model, she appeared in advertising campaigns for fashion brands and could be seen in the pages of such high-end magazines as Glamour and Vanity Fair.

While Jacobson may have been good at it, modeling was never something that she ever aspired to. She had simply fallen into it and decided to give it a shot. "When you're 22 and someone says you could be a model, you're a little like [smiling] 'oh, really?'" she recalled in an interview with Into the Gloss.

However, once she was confronted with the realities of modeling — the constant judgement and emphasis on minute physical flaws — Jacobson soon realized that this was not a path she was prepared to follow. "But it was not all that it was cracked up to be," she added. "It was not good for my self-esteem, and I just didn't really belong there."

Louisa Jacobson's path from nepo baby to "The Gilded Age" has taken many twists and turns, such as when, after graduating college, she took a job with an advertising agency. "I wanted to do something different than the rest of my family," she explained to Elle, recalling how, at that time, she felt a need to prove herself in a field where she wouldn't be compared to her famous mother.

While the experience ultimately made her realize that acting was her true passion, it did leave her with some funny anecdotes — one of which she shared when appearing on late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's talk show. During that appearance, Jacobson recalled how one of her assignments for the agency required her to take a voyage on a cruise ship in order to rate the overall experience and report back to her bosses. "And I was alone on the cruise, which is a strange thing," she observed, revealing she had to keep her intentions top secret. "And I also couldn't tell anybody why I was there," she added. "I was like a secret agent spy."

Maintaining her cover, however, proved to be challenging when she was seated with other cruise passengers at dinner — all of whom were couples. "They were so confused as to why I was on the ship by myself. I couldn't tell them," she said. "That's when I knew I wanted to be an actor."

After earning an undergraduate degree from Vassar, Louisa Jacobson took the next step in her evolution by studying acting at Yale. Sure, she could have just started auditioning, but she felt it was important to gain a solid grounding in the craft before embarking on a professional acting career. "I knew that if I just went into it without studying it, I would feel, I already feel, in some ways like I don't deserve," she told The New York Times. "I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing, and that I had a tool kit of professionalism that I was walking into the room with."

Mere months after graduating with an MFA, she was playing Juliet in a theatrical production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" when she auditioned for the role of Marian Brook in "The Gilded Age," a new period drama from the creator of "Downton Abbey." "I was such a 'Downton Abbey' fan when it first came out," she told Who What Wear. "I watched that show religiously ... of course, I'm going to audition for this."

Against all odds, she got the part. Jacobson's first post-graduation acting job was a major role in a big-budget series with an impressive pedigree. Despite her inexperience, Jacobson's talent and professionalism carried her through, impressing co-star Christine Baranski (who had previously co-starred with Jacobson's mom, Meryl Streep, in "Mamma Mia!"). "Can you imagine jumping into being the leading lady on 'The Gilded Age?' What a daunting task," Baranski told The New York Times.

When Louisa Jacobson was cast in "The Gilded Age," it was not in a minor role — but as a key character who would be sharing numerous scenes with highly experienced actors. That responsibility was coupled with the fact that acting in front of a camera for "The Gilded Age" required a whole new set of skills that she didn't really possess at that time. "That was my first job on a set," she relayed to Tatler. "All the professional experience I've had is in the theatre, my training is in the theatre — it's a different task and asks different things of you."

There was also another major challenge to overcome: the restrictive corset she wore as part of her costume, which impacted her both physically and psychologically. "[A corset] makes you yawn every time you put it on and you can't really eat too much because you feel ill — so it wrecks your digestion," Jacobson explained when interviewed by Tatler. "Psychologically, it's just the feeling of being stuck and pulled and kept."

As Jacobson detailed while appearing on the "Reign with Josh Smith" podcast, that corset has brought her plenty of discomfort, but she has learned to manage it. "It was taxing physically and mentally, I couldn't sleep on my side for a long time because my ribs were so sore," she said, revealing that she began having her dresser loosen the corset during pauses in filming, just so she could get a bit of relief. "They were called corset breaks," she added.

While growing up as the daughter of one of the world's greatest actors brought Louisa Jacobson deep inside the creative process, at the end of the day, Meryl Streep was simply her mom. That fact prompted Jimmy Kimmel to ask, "When your mom's Meryl Streep, does she annoy you in the way other people's moms annoy them?" when Jacobson appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

"Of course, of course," Jacobson agreed, revealing the cute nickname her mom had given her: Pickle. Acknowledging that Streep is "really sweet," Jacobson did, however, zero in on one particularly annoying — and particularly distinctive — trait. "This is a really embarrassing thing that she does," Jacobson divulged. "If she starts to speak to someone who has an accent, she'll just start doing the accent."

That revelation broke up Kimmel, who began heartily guffawing. "And she'll get an Oscar for it usually, right?" he quipped.

After filming completed on the 3rd season of "The Gilded Age," Louisa Jacobson returned to the stage as one of four stars of "Trophy Boys," a boldly experimental Off-Broadway play. Written by Australian playwright Emmanuelle Mattana, the play focuses on four high school boys in a debate club. The twist: all four boys are played by women in drag, with Jacobson playing tough-talking Jared.

As Jacobson explained to Vogue, the concept of female drag is immediately edgy for audiences. "We don't see it as often as we see queens, you know? It's less digestible. People don't always understand how to receive it," she said.  "So we were batting up a little bit with that, but it's been really fun."

For Jacobson, playing a teenage boy after three seasons of inhabiting the tightly corseted 1880s world of Marian Brook was nothing short of revelatory. "I wanted to dive all into it," she gushed. "My ability to embody Jared felt limitless. How am I going to go back to being a regular girl after this?"

While attending the Yale School of Drama, Louisa Jacobson met fellow acting student Jonathan Higginbotham, who went on to appear in several episodes of "The Walking Dead: Dead City." They began dating and moved in together after graduating. 

At some point after that, however, Jacobson realized she'd been living a lie. "I was hiding for so long, part of myself that I knew was always there," she told Page Six. After being "in straight relationships back-to-back," she came out as openly gay in 2024, introducing her girlfriend, producer Anna Blundell. 

In 2025, Jacobson was honored by the Human Rights Campaign, receiving the organization's HRC Visibility Award. "It means everything to be honored," she told People. "I was surprised because I had only recently come out," she added, expressing her gratitude for being part of such an inclusive industry. "That I'm in a community of artists who also identify as LGBTQ so it's just a warm, lovely welcome that I am blessed to have and I don't take that for granted," she said.