Abbi Jacobson realizes that her new movie, 6 Balloons, may sound like a fun romp. “I’m kind of nervous that people will be thinking it’s a comedy and they will be thrown,” she says about the film, in which she stars opposite Dave Franco—another actor primarily known for lighthearted work

But Jacobson displays none of the Abbi Abrams’s “yas, queen” clowning viewers have come to expect from the Broad City star in 6 Balloons. Instead, she turns in a subtle and nuanced dramatic performance as the devoted sister of a recently relapsed heroin addict (Franco, also shifting gears) in the Netflix film that begins streaming Friday, April 6.

Jacobson knows the role is quite a departure—and says it took a lot of convincing to get producers to cast her. “I auditioned a couple of times,” she says. “I don’t think I was a lot of people’s first choice, to be honest. [Writer-director] Marja-Lewis Ryan really fought for me.”

The story takes place over the course of a very long day (and night) as Katie, an über-responsible, self-help-tape-listening Angeleno tries to take care of both the last-minute preparations for her boyfriend’s surprise birthday party and her increasingly strung-out brother, Seth—who’s looking after his two-year-old daughter, Ella (Charlotte and Madeline Carel), and desperately needs a detox. Unlike many stories of addiction, this one focuses on the enabler rather than the relapsing addict.

Ironically, one of the producers that needed persuading was Samantha Housman, on whose experience 6 Balloons is based. Rather than being unnerved by the presence of her character’s real-life inspiration, Jacobson says it was “relieving” to be able to check in with her, even though the two women had already spent time together ahead of filming the low-budget indie over the course of 19 days. “Katie has all this anger and frustration and disappointment because she and Seth have been there before, numerous times,” Jacobson says. “I just wanted to make sure I was playing it as real as possible.”

There are some light moments between the squabbling siblings, as when a frustrated Katie tells Seth she wishes he’d told her he’s using again. “Next time,” he says, he will—before waiting a beat and adding, “That was a joke.” Katie’s reply: “No, that was hilarious . . . It brought down the house. You should develop that, like a longer act.” Later, their banter becomes scathing as Katie drives around L.A. looking for a rehab facility—and ultimately, a fix for her brother.

Jacobson gets back to her roots on her current project, voicing the character of a hard-drinking medieval princess named Bean for Matt Groening’s upcoming animated Netflix series Disenchantment. “She has a tumultuous relationship with her dad,” Jacobson says—explaining why the royal with an elfin sidekick (Nat Faxon) and a personal demon (Eric Andre) is constantly tipsy.

That’s more than she can divulge about the already filmed challenge that she and her Broad City co-star Ilana Glazer judged for an upcoming episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. “It’s pretty much under lock and key over there,” she says when asked which queen had to sashay away. “I know roughly when it airs because, as a judge, I know how many contestants are left. But I can’t say.”

She’s a bit more forthcoming about the next season of Broad City, which is just about fully written. She and Glazer plan to direct more episodes this year, though they might walk back another creative choice. Last season, the series bleeped every mention of Donald Trump’s name. This time around, “We had this whole discussion, and I think we are actually trying to avoid even mentioning him,” she says. “It’s not even funny anymore.”

A trained illustrator, Jacobson is also taking seriously the planning for a second season of A Piece of Work, a podcast in which she and her famous friends make modern art accessible. But she’s not sure she’s any closer to snagging dream guest Gloria Steinem—even after playing the feminist icon on Drunk History. She did recently tell her idol about the homage, letting Steinem know she was the only reason Jacobson would ever slip on a Playboy Bunny outfit.

So, what does the love life of the woman clearly not lacking any jobs—she also just signed on to co-write a new half-hour comedy based on the film A League of Their Own for Amazon—look like? Though she’s busy, Jacobson adds that she’s open to meeting somebody. “I kind of go both ways; I date men and women,” she says. “They have to be funny, doing something they love. I don’t know—I’ve never really been interviewed about this before.” When told that by virtue of this conversation, she’s putting herself out there to be approached by potential matches, she replies good-naturedly, “Yeah, who knows? The world is my oyster.”