
T.J. Jagodowski
Acting
Known For

Two friends go on a work trip and encounter unexpected challenges and local personalities as they navigate their assignment. Their efforts to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings highlights moments of humor, small-town culture and the unpredictable nature of work travel. As they troubleshoot problems, their experience leaves a lasting impression and offers new perspectives on their friendship.
Gary

This eclectic, star-studded anthology follows diverse Chicagoans fumbling through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture. First dates, friends with benefits, couples with kids. Whatever your relationship status is, it's always complicated.
Easy

Oscar Diggs, a small-time circus illusionist and con-artist, is whisked from Kansas to the Land of Oz where the inhabitants assume he's the great wizard of prophecy, there to save Oz from the clutches of evil.
Oz the Great and Powerful

When millionaire hedge fund manager James is convicted of fraud and sentenced to a stretch in San Quentin, the judge gives him one month to get his affairs in order. Knowing that he won't survive more than a few minutes in prison on his own, James desperately turns to Darnell-- a black businessman who's never even had a parking ticket -- for help. As Darnell puts James through the wringer, both learn that they were wrong about many things, including each other.
Get Hard

After being rejected from every medical residency program on his list, Dr. David Tracy scrambles to perform 1750 hours of clinical therapy out of his garage to become a licensed therapist before his $500,000 activate and destroy his life.
Shrink

Harold Crick is a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life.
Stranger Than Fiction

A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.
The Ice Harvest

Gary is falsely accused of beating his insane ex-girlfriend Charlotte, and he is sentenced to 30 days in Merkin Penal, a privately run prison. Once behind bars he runs into his old friend Smitty, who's in the 2nd year of his 9 month stay, due to a run in with the TSA. Smitty is "insane Charlotte's" older brother. Smitty and Gary met while Gary and Charlotte were an item. They are forever bonded together by their shared celebration of hatred for Charlotte. After a First Class, welcoming tour of the prison via Smitty, and a run-in with Emmett O'Donald, from upper Prison Management, Gary realizes his original sentence of 30 days was all Bulls@!t. He may never get out.
Merkin Penal

A college freshman involved in a fatal car crash discovers she may not have survived after all when she becomes caught between the worlds of the living and the dead.
Soul Survivors

Horror/ comedy that explores what happens when a terrible situation is dropped into the laps of the two people least equipped to deal with it. The Brothers Mugg can either step up to the plate and finally grow up, or they can wait and clean up the mess as a mysterious creature eats every living thing in the building, one by one.
The Mole Man of Belmont Avenue

Trapped in a fluorescent-lit cubicle farm, an aspiring musician thinks the free break room kombucha is a perk - until it begins to change him. What starts with suspicious smiles and team-building ends in a bile-drenched metamorphosis.
Kombucha

Two down-on-their-luck half-brothers run a failing dive bar in Indiana and get a shot at taking on England’s elite darts champions.
Bulls
Immortalized in the world of improv comedy, Second City veterans TJ Jagodowksi and David Pasquesi explore the unique partnership and transcendental forces that govern their legendary performances.
Trust Us, This Is All Made Up

For almost three decades, a passion and obsession drove "Chicago's Taping Guy" to record audio from thousands of live rock concerts. Melomaniac introduces Aadam Jacobs and his archive of recordings while exploring his impact as a Chicago music scene staple in the 80s and 90s. Interviews with the owners of longstanding Chicago venues including The Metro and the former Lounge Ax lend perspective to Aadam's character and the music scene. Conversations with Chicago artists give the 80s/90s scene a voice through interviews that include local music icon Jon Langford and comedian Fred Armisen. The film looks forward to the vital need to preserve the historically important music legacy Aadam will someday leave behind while highlighting its importance now.
Melomaniac

30-year-old Owen Fenby loves his girlfriend. But he loves high school hockey more. Or does he? One by one, his friends are deserting his annual pilgrimage to the Wisconsin State High School Hockey Tournament, forcing him to confront some harsh truths about his bizarre obsession.
No Sleep 'til Madison

TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi are true improv legends. Their show, TJ and Dave, is an international award-winning show that has inspired improvisers all over the world. If you've never seen long form improvisation, this is an excellent place to start!
TJ and Dave

This short narrative chronicles a week in the lives of three teenage girls. They are high school classmates from different social circles, who form a bond in the wake of an unanticipated incident. Two of the girls are falling in love with each other against all expectations and the third girl is forced to mother her own mother after her father vanishes. Each girl seeks comfort within the walls of her bedroom where the music blasting from the turntable provides a magical synchronicity between them all.
Blood Below the Skin
Part talk show and part workplace comedy, "Bettendorf Talks” is set in the titular Quad City, hosted by TJ and Dave, a comedy duo of former middling renown. They are trying to use this show as a stepping stone to regain some of their former perceived glory. It’s an unrealistic expectation in a town with no stars, a show with no budget, an inexperienced writing staff, Dave’s ego and TJ’s naiveté. The band rocks, the local guests are quirky and fun, the director is an absolute boss, the producer is motivated, the announcer might be a murderer, but despite all that going for it, it’s shocking how little can be accomplished when everyone is working as hard as they can in separate directions.
Bettendorf Talks

Within the walls of the trendiest Chicago restaurants, behind the closed doors of private dinner parties, and on the banks of the Seine in Paris, OPEN TABLES explores true love, love lost and the importance of a good main course.
Open Tables

A group of young hackers realize that their future is being sold to the highest bidder so they fight back against a system that is programmed against them.