Sadly for all the Jewish pop culture mavens out there, there’s really nothing Jewish about hit hockey romance show “Heated Rivalry.” (At least in season one, anyway.) But, the show’s creator, writer and executive producer Jacob Tierney is Jewish!
Here are 18 things to know about him.
1. Jacob was born on September 26, 1979 in Montreal.
2. He’s a Libra!
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3. According to IMDb, his paternal heritage is Irish, while his maternal heritage is Romanian and Russian Jewish.
4. He identifies as “a queer, half-Jewish guy from Montreal.”
5. Jacob got his start in the entertainment industry as a child actor. He is perhaps best known as playing Eric in “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”
6. He was on a handful of TV shows in the ’90s and 2000s, including “Dracula: The Series,” “Watatatow,” “Hey Joel” and “Slings and Arrows.”
7. He made his directorial debut in 2002 with a short film called “Dad.”
8. Jacob has frequently collaborated with Canadian actress Emily Hampshire, best known for playing Stevie in “Schitt’s Creek.”
9. Jacob’s father was Canadian film producer Kevin Tierney, who produced his movie “The Trotsky.” The movie screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, and you can listen to Jacob speak about writing the movie below:
10. In 2011, he was in a short film called “Sorry, Rabbi.” Jacob plays a secular Jew named Josh who agrees to go before a Hasidic tribunal after some Hasidic men accuse him of stone-throwing and antisemitism.
11. Jacob co-created, co-wrote, directed and executive produced the sitcom “Letterkenny.” “We’ve never had a plan about how to evolve the show,” Tierney told The Globe and Mail about writing the show with co-creator Jared Keeso. “We just keep digging into what works.”
12. He also played Pastor Glen, a closeted Christian minister, on “Letterkenny.”
13. He has won multiple Canadian Screen Awards in writing, direction and best comedy series for “Letterkenny.”
14. Jacob also worked on the “Letterkenny” spin-off “Shoresy.” He directed seasons one and two, and played Quebecois hockey broadcaster Benoit “Benny” Brodeur.
15. He will always consider himself an actor, even though he’s done a lot of writing and directing. “Acting is something that I’ve done since I was a little kid, it’s been my whole life, since I was 6,” he said in 2011. “So I will always consider myself an actor, in some way, though that’s definitely not what I’ve been doing.”
16. Jacob wrote and directed all of season one of “Heated Rivalry” by himself! (He adapted the show from Rachel Reid’s book.) That’s a pretty impressive feat if you ask us.
“I love this book so much, and so much of what I wanted to bring to it were the things that I remembered, the things that imprinted on me. What I remember so clearly was just this feeling of oh, they get to be in love,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s all that I wanted, was the simplicity of that, of just letting them have a [moment].”
17. When online discourse started veering towards questioning “Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storie’s respective sexualities, Jacob had the pitch-perfect response. “I don’t think there’s any reason to get into that stuff,” he told Xtra. “I’ll tell you something about the casting of both of these roles. You can’t ask questions like that when you’re casting, right? It’s actually against the law. So what you have to gauge is somebody’s enthusiasm and willingness to do the work.”
He went on, “And that’s what’s so impressive about both of these guys is they came into this being like, ‘Yeah, we’re here to do this, and we are here to make this story feel authentic and to be as real as possible.’ And they fucking hit it out of the park.”
18. “Heated Rivalry” has already been renewed for a second season! We’ll let Jacob speak for himself about where the show is going next:
