Abbi Jacobson has developed an increasingly prominent presence in animation, lending her voice to characters across television and film while maintaining a successful career in live-action comedy. Best known for co-creating and starring in Broad City, Jacobson has also established herself as a versatile voice performer through projects including BoJack Horseman, Disenchantment, The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Netflix’s Long Story Short.
Her work in animation received further recognition in 2026 when she earned an Annie Award nomination for her portrayal of Shira Schwooper in Long Story Short. The nomination followed an earlier Annie Award victory for The Mitchells vs. the Machines, highlighting a career that has gradually expanded from supporting animated roles to leading performances in critically recognized productions.
From Broad City to Animated Television
Jacobson first gained widespread recognition through Broad City, the Comedy Central sitcom she created with Ilana Glazer. The series, which ran from 2014 to 2019, established her comedic style through its character-driven humor, unconventional situations and portrayals of everyday relationships.
Her transition into animation included a recurring role as Emily in Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. Although the character was not among the show’s central figures, the performance introduced Jacobson to a different form of comedy, one that combined absurd humor with emotionally complicated relationships.
A more substantial opportunity arrived with Disenchantment, the animated fantasy comedy created by Matt Groening. Jacobson voiced Princess Bean, the rebellious daughter of King Zøg, throughout the Netflix series, which premiered in 2018 and concluded in 2023.
Unlike many traditional animated princess characters, Bean was written as impulsive, frequently irresponsible and resistant to the expectations placed upon her. Jacobson’s performance helped establish the character’s sarcastic personality while allowing her to develop more emotional depth as the series progressed.
The role also required Jacobson to sustain a central animated character across multiple seasons. Through Bean, she gained experience portraying a character whose personality evolved over an extended narrative, moving between comedy, fantasy adventure and more dramatic situations.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines Brings Annie Award Recognition
Jacobson’s animation career reached another milestone with Sony Pictures Animation’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines, released on Netflix in 2021. She voiced Katie Mitchell, an aspiring filmmaker whose relationship with her father becomes central to the family’s efforts to survive a global robot uprising.
The film combined science-fiction comedy with a story about family relationships and the difficulties of understanding people with different interests and perspectives. Katie’s enthusiasm for filmmaking, creative ambitions and complicated relationship with her father required a performance that could move between energetic comedy and emotional vulnerability.
Jacobson’s portrayal received recognition at the 49th Annie Awards in 2022, where she won Best Voice Acting in a Feature. The film itself enjoyed considerable awards success, winning Best Feature and several other categories at the ceremony.
The award marked an important development in Jacobson’s voice acting career. After establishing herself through television comedy and animated series, she had received individual recognition for leading a major animated feature.
Her performance as Katie also demonstrated how her conversational delivery could support a character whose emotional experiences were central to the story. Rather than relying on an exaggerated vocal transformation, Jacobson used variations in timing, energy and expression to communicate Katie’s enthusiasm, frustration and vulnerability.
Long Story Short Introduces a Different Kind of Voice Performance
Jacobson returned to Netflix animation in 2025 with Long Story Short, the adult animated comedy-drama created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, best known for BoJack Horseman.
The series follows the Schwooper family across different periods of their lives, moving between childhood experiences, adult relationships and family gatherings. Its nonlinear storytelling allows individual episodes to explore how memories, family dynamics and personal experiences influence the characters over time.
Jacobson voices Shira Schwooper, one of the central family members. Unlike Princess Bean or Katie Mitchell, Shira exists within a story that regularly moves backward and forward through the character’s life, requiring Jacobson to portray her at different ages and emotional stages.
In interviews about the series, Jacobson has discussed the challenges of working within its unusual chronology. Because the story does not unfold in a straightforward sequence, the actors must understand where their characters are emotionally during each scene, even when the recording process does not follow the order in which events occur.
Bob-Waksberg’s approach to storytelling places considerable emphasis on the relationships between characters and the emotional consequences of seemingly ordinary experiences. For Jacobson, the role offers opportunities to explore family relationships, personal insecurities and the differences between how people remember events.
The performance also represents a return to the creative world associated with BoJack Horseman, although Long Story Short tells a distinct story with its own characters and themes.
A Second Annie Nomination and Growing Awards Recognition
Jacobson’s performance as Shira earned a nomination for Best Voice Acting in Television/Media at the 53rd Annie Awards, held February 21, 2026.
She was nominated for the episode “Shira Can’t Cook,” competing alongside Dan Mintz for Bob’s Burgers, Erika Henningsen for Hazbin Hotel, Zach Hadel for Smiling Friends and Alkaio Thiele for The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball. Mintz ultimately won the category for his portrayal of Tina Belcher.
Although Jacobson did not win, the nomination added another individual achievement to her animation career, coming four years after her Annie Award victory for The Mitchells vs. the Machines.
The episode itself received additional industry recognition when “Shira Can’t Cook” won the Animation category at the 2026 Writers Guild Awards. The recognition highlighted the show’s writing alongside Jacobson’s nominated performance, particularly its ability to combine family comedy with more emotionally complicated storytelling.
Long Story Short continued receiving awards attention throughout 2026. The series earned a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Animated Series and later won Outstanding Achievement in Animation at the Television Critics Association Awards in August.
Netflix had also renewed the series for a second season before its first season premiered, providing an opportunity for the Schwooper family’s story to continue.
These developments have helped establish Long Story Short as another significant addition to Jacobson’s animation résumé, particularly because the series places her performance within an ensemble of characters whose relationships evolve across multiple timelines.
An Animation Career Built Around Character-Driven Comedy
Across her animated roles, Jacobson has portrayed characters with notably different personalities and circumstances. Princess Bean is a rebellious fantasy heroine, Katie Mitchell is an ambitious young filmmaker, and Shira Schwooper is part of a family whose complicated relationships form the foundation of an adult animated comedy.
Despite those differences, the performances share an emphasis on character-driven humor and emotional storytelling. Jacobson frequently portrays characters who struggle with expectations, relationships or their place within a larger family or social environment.
Her experience as a writer, comedian and live-action performer provides an additional dimension to that work. Having helped create and develop characters through Broad City, Jacobson brings experience with comedic timing and character relationships to productions where the final performance is shaped through animation.
Her two Annie-recognized performances also illustrate the range of her work. The Mitchells vs. the Machines required her to lead an animated feature built around a family adventure, while Long Story Short asks her to portray a character across different periods of her life within a nonlinear television narrative.
With an Annie Award victory, another nomination and several major animated productions behind her, Jacobson has established a substantial body of voice acting work alongside her live-action career. Her role in Long Story Short continues that progression, adding another character to an animation résumé that now spans comedy, fantasy, science fiction and family drama.