JACOB'S LADDER

Y&R’s Jacob Aaron Gaines Is Forging A Show Business Career, Step By Step

- Devin Owens

Not too long ago, sports was the most important thing in the young life of Jacob Aaron Gaines. “I went to a small private high school where I met my best friend Gordon,” shares the actor. “We were involved in sports together, so I played baseball and basketball until my junior year. That’s when Gordon decided to drop out of sports, which sort of took the fun out of it for me and that made me think, ‘Now what?’ ”

Becoming an actor was a thought in the back of his mind, but Gaines assumed it was an unattainable goal. “When I was about 10, I loved watching Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel, and I really wanted to be on one of those shows, but to be honest, I didn’t know how to get into acting; I thought you had to be born into it,” Gaines chuckles. “I was clueless about what the next step would be, so I never said or did anything about it.”

With athletics on the sidelines, Gaines started to make some subtle inquiries about his dream profession. “One day, my mom’s hairdresser said, ‘There’s this school that I could connect you with and you can see if you like it,’ ” he recalls. “It was a little conservatory in Santa Monica and I had to ask my mom three times about going there before she realized I was serious. At first, my dad was like, ‘What?’ It’s not that he thought it would be a waste of time, but it was expensive, so he told me if that was what I wanted to do, then I would have to put my full effort into it.”