Jameela Jamil Says She Had ‘$17 in My Bank Account’ When She Got Cast on The Good Place

Jameela Jamil is opening up about her path to becoming an actress.

Jamil, 39, joined David Tennant for the Tuesday, March 4 episode of his podcast, David Tennant Does a Podcast With…, and spoke about her career and life before landing a role on the hit NBC sitcom, The Good Place.

Created by Mike Schur, the series premiered in 2016 and ran until 2020. Jamil starred alongside Kristen Bell, Manny Jacinto, William Jackson Harper and Ted Danson as their characters navigated the afterlife.

She noted that before landing the role, she left her previous job as a presenter on The BBC Radio 1 Chart show in 2015. “I just didn’t want to be on TV anymore ever again, and I wanted to be a writer and a DJ, and so I just f—ed off,” she recalled to Tennant.

The actress explained that she then decided to join her then-musician-boyfriend while he was on tour. “And then I ran out of money and so I said, ‘Please can I have a job, any job, I will do anything,’” she said.

“I was so desperate for money at that point. I had $17 left in my bank account,” she said. “I was real keen.”

“But instead I was handed a bunch of auditions,” she said, revealing that one was to host a Las Vegas magic show and another was for her inevitable role in The Good Place. But she originally didn’t want to audition for the role because she had “never acted before and just thought that was a sacrilege.”

She and Tennant acknowledged that type of career pivot doesn’t typically happen. She explained, “It’s like, ‘Stay in your lane,’ and the reason I left is partially because I wanted to be able to write.”

Jamil noted that she had a show that she pitched and that script is what prompted executives to tell her to audition for The Good Place. She recalled, “They were the ones who said, ‘We want you to go to this audition for Mike Schur. You’ll have more power as a writer if you have a name for yourself, or you can just meet him and maybe he’ll put you in the writer’s room.’”

“So I went to the audition, just very much so not thinking anything was going to come of it,” she said. “I got both the magic show and Mike Schur and I had to make a choice. You weren’t allowed to do both.” Concluding, that she “got pushed towards doing The Good Place.”

She confessed that throughout her career, she’s “been in exactly the right time at the right place.” Adding, “It’s ridiculous and it’s good because it means I’ve never disappeared out my arsehole because I’m well aware that I don’t belong here.”

“But I’m having a lovely time and I’m working very hard because I care deeply about not letting down the people who’ve taken a stupid chance on me,” she said.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The Good Place is available to stream in full on Netflix.