Billy Jessup

Billy Jessup
Behind the scenes
Appearance(s):	Jumanji (film) Jumanji (1995 Novel)
Portrayed by:	Gary Joseph Thorup

Billy Jessup is the ex-boyfriend of Sarah Whittle when they were teenagers, while he was also an enemy of Alan Parrish due to jealousy of the positive friendship between them and possibly Alan's superior heritage and living class. He was the catalyst for Sam Parrish's meaningful lesson about standing up to face his fears.

Film

Billy Jessup was half 13 year old, half attack dog and had been hard on Alan for a long time presumably due to being a Parrish, out of jealousy, and hanging out with his girlfriend, even though Sarah told Billy to stop being so aggressive. While Alan was riding his bike minding his own business, Billy hid behind the town statue of General Angus Parrish and pursued Alan with his gang, threatening his life. Alan had one advantage over Billy's gang, their bikes were inferior to his but Billy hung around outside the Parrish Shoe Company's Factory and waited for Alan to come back out, despite telling Alan to prepare to die he and his gang instead just to beat him up and stole his bike. But Sarah got Alan's bike back from Billy and had ordered Billy to stop picking on him once and for all. And at least in novel Sarah had claimed Billy was not her boyfriend. Which would imply Billy just had a strong interest in her, but Sarah really had no interest in him and that he claimed her to be his girlfriend and maybe even made her do stuff him with such as going to the movies whether she wanted to or not, or Sarah was just planning to break up with him after what had happened or even both.

Billy is not seen again for the rest of the film or the novel but it remains clear that his relationship with Sarah did not continue in both Jumanji's alternate timeline and the restored timeline, Sarah seemed to have break up with Billy for picking on Alan when they got older. It also unknown whatever happened to Billy and what became of him later as an adult (especially in 1995) in either timeline.

Trivia

Gary Joseph Thorup (who played Billy Jessup) had only one other acting role according to IMDB, he had appeared in an episode of "Law & Order" original series in the season 5 episode "Wannabe" which was about group of bullies who committed a murder to a staff member at school and Gary's character "Vaughan Prescott" was a witness and a victim who was threatened by the bullies (which is ironic compared to his role in this movie).

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