JACKMARTINISJUSTGETTINGSTARTED
There are actors who chase attention, and then there are actors who quietly earn it. Jack Martin falls squarely into the second category.
WORDS Yale Breslin
Interview taken from IMAGINE Magazine Issue Three Pre Order here
Over the past few months, the Virginia native has found himself in the kind of career moment most young actors spend years hoping for. There was Not Suitable for Work, Hulu’s workplace comedy from Mindy Kaling that shot to the top of the platform’s charts. Before that came Pizza Movie. Then there’s Happy Hours, Katie Holmes’ romantic drama that premiered at Tribeca and pairs Martin opposite Joshua Jackson as the younger version of his character. Three projects. Three completely different worlds. One actor suddenly impossible to ignore.
Yet when we speak over video from opposite coasts – me in New York, him in Los Angeles – there’s no trace of Hollywood polish or rehearsed sound bites. If anything, Martin seems almost surprised to be here.
“I still can’t believe this is real,” he tells me early in our conversation.
Martin speaks about acting the way musicians talk about songwriting or athletes talk about their sport. There’s an almost childlike reverence for the craft. Every director becomes a teacher. Every co-star becomes another opportunity to learn. Success, in his mind, isn’t measured by premieres or streaming numbers nearly as much as getting another chance to tell another story.
That mindset explains why, despite starring opposite established names like Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson – working under comedy powerhouse Mindy Kaling – he spends remarkably little time talking about himself. Instead, he talks about collaboration. Leadership. Creativity. The people who helped him get here.
Ask him about Happy Hours, and he doesn’t begin with his own performance. He talks about Katie Holmes creating a set where kindness wasn’t optional – it was simply how everyone behaved. Ask about Not Suitable for Work, and the conversation quickly shifts to Mindy Kaling’s instinct for comedy and her ability to communicate with actors in ways that make every note feel both specific and empowering.
For Martin, acting isn’t about becoming the center of attention.
It’s about becoming someone else entirely.
That obsession with character runs through everything he says. He describes acting less as pretending and more as believing – allowing yourself to care so deeply about a fictional person’s wants, fears and mistakes that they begin to feel completely real. The flawed characters are the interesting ones. The vulnerable ones. The ones willing to be wrong.
Perhaps that’s why his performances already feel unusually grounded for someone still at the beginning of his career. There’s very little vanity in the way he approaches the work.
He lights up talking about romance films, admits he cries during Moulin Rouge! and The Notebook, and laughs while confessing he had to stop listening to Phoebe Bridgers because the music made him too emotional.
There’s something refreshing about that openness.
In an industry often built around image, Martin seems much more interested in honesty.
And maybe that’s why this moment feels different.
Yes, he’s suddenly everywhere. Yes, the projects are getting bigger. Yes, the names surrounding him keep getting more impressive.
But the person underneath all of it still sounds like the kid who wrote “TV film actor” in his elementary school yearbook.
The dream hasn’t changed.
It’s simply becoming real.
