‘Do not underestimate Quinta Brunson’: ‘Abbott Elementary’ cast on historic Emmy haul
“Abbott Elementary” has earned top marks with Emmy voters.
The mockumentary-style ABC series, created by and starring Quinta Brunson, follows a group of passionate teachers at a predominantly Black Philadelphia elementary school, each with their own strategy for dealing with the district’s budget constraints, the students’ TikTok distractions and their colleagues’ high turnover. Brunson, the daughter of a kindergarten teacher, grew up in the West Philadelphia public school system and named the series after a standout middle school teacher, Ms. Abbott.
After earning strong reviews and ratings across its 13-episode first season, the freshman comedy collected seven Emmy nominations on Tuesday, including for comedy series, lead actress Brunson, supporting actor Tyler James Williams and supporting actresses Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph. “Abbott” — this year’s most-nominated broadcast series — was also nominated for writing (its pilot episode, written by Brunson) and casting.
Past winners ‘Succession’ and ‘Ted Lasso’ and newcomers ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Abbott Elementary’ were among the leading 2022 Emmy nominees.
It’s a historic haul, as Brunson is the first Black woman to receive three Emmy nominations for the same comedy series in a single year (lead actress, writing and comedy series). “Creating this show has been the greatest gift and to have it recognized in this way is the dream. It’s a joy we get to share with the amazing people who watched our first season,” she said in a statement. “Most importantly, I want to thank teachers. Thanks for being our inspiration.”
Shortly after the announcement, The Times spoke with Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tyler James Williams and Janelle James — who play buttoned-up teacher Barbara Howard, jaded substitute Gregory Eddie and self-involved principal Ava Coleman, respectively — about nabbing their first Emmy nominations and working with the most dynamic kid actors on television. Below are excerpts from the conversations.
Congratulations on your first Emmy nominations! How are you feeling?
Janelle James: I didn’t need coffee today! [laughs] I’m ecstatic. I wasn’t watching [the nominations announcement], but the phone let me know something really good or bad happened, and that many people don’t call you with bad news. The life of a comedian is to work in relative obscurity for a decade and then get everything at once, so this feels like the culmination of all the work I’ve been doing mostly for free and for drink tickets and a half sandwich. And although I am a comedian, the scripts come to us funny, so I’m so glad that the writing of this show was also recognized.
Sheryl Lee Ralph: I am at a place that I have never experienced in my life. Wow, I am so happy, so thankful, so grateful. This is everything. I love what I do, I love being an actor, and I do it for the love, I don’t do it for the likes. I’m in Jamaica, and my son woke up early this morning to tell me and I almost fell off the bed. And I really realized what it means when people say “my phone blew up” because it literally blew up.
Tyler James Williams: You’re gonna need another phone because it’s just gonna burn right up! [laughs] It’s an honor. It’s shocking to me — for a 13-episode midseason show on network TV, no one really expects us to do this well. I’m in L.A. right now — we started production Monday, so I’m in prep, just not as luxuriously as Sheryl! — and I was so excited for Sheryl and Janelle and Quinta that I didn’t even see mine. Someone had to tell me.
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What do you admire about your co-star’s performance?
Williams: Sheryl is one of the most versatile actors of her time. The industry shifts and trends, and acting styles become popular and go out of style. Sheryl maintains, she’s the constant, she is timeless and she can adapt to anything. I’ve watched her actively adapt to the mockumentary style and thrive at it within the matter of an episode. We all hope that we could be that diverse, and that our instrument can apply for so many years.
Ralph: Aw, Tyler, you’re gonna make me cry, thank you. Tyler is such a pro, he can tell you about every inch of what we are doing. He knows about the cameras, the lighting, the direction, the sound. He can tell you even the intricacies of the numbers that we get back from this show. I’m like, “Lord, have mercy, he is a walking, talking TV encyclopedia.” Go, baby, go!
And I love his character, Gregory. He has a complicated relationship with his father; he’s been stunted in his growth as a human being, but he is trying. And there was one moment when Gregory wasn’t supposed to dance, but his students wanted to. And Gregory looks at that little boy like he’s looking at himself, and he starts to dance a little bit, and the boy starts to dance and then everybody is rocking out. He was giving his younger self permission to just drive and dance. That’s hard, to give all of that to what looks like a simple moment.
Williams: Thank you, it means the world. I think the same thing about a moment where Sheryl somehow manages to thread the needle of being the consummate professional that is Barbara Howard, while also having to give love to the people around her. She throws a double look — two cameras in two different directions — and they’re two of the most nuanced and, I think, funniest looks of our season.
That moment is so layered and particularly complex for a pilot when you’re setting the tone, and Sheryl manages to give us a glimpse into not only who Barbara is, but how she feels about this moment, how she feels about [Brunson’s character] Janine, how she doesn’t have time for this but she knows that if she doesn’t handle this now, she’s now going to have a bigger issue later. To have such clarity of a character in a pilot, it doesn’t happen like that. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve watched it over and over again.
I love that “Abbott Elementary” also got a casting nomination, which applauds the chemistry between the adult actors but also those wonderful kids.
James: For a lot of these kids, this is their first time on television. They aren’t all Hollywood yet or whatever. They were just kids having a good time, and I often felt the same way. And they’re not difficult at all. They love me. We have fun.
Williams: From the beginning, Quinta always said that she didn’t want actor kids, she wanted kids who moved and acted like kids, who weren’t really aware of the cameras yet and were still kind of getting used to them. Which is a crazy choice as a producer, because that could potentially screw your whole day up. Casting was able to find this nice middle ground between kids who were green and could still be natural, but could also be around that camera and not slow down the workday and make this show possible to shoot.
I say this as somebody who got their start really young: Ideally, if 20 years from now somebody walked up to me and said, “I got my first job on ‘Abbott Elementary’” and that’s what led them into this world, that’s everything that we could possibly ask for. In a lot of ways, casting for this show may be setting up the next generation of Hollywood.
Ralph: I’m listening to them talk to each other all day, and they are some little professionals in the making.
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Brunson has made history as the first Black woman to receive three Emmy nominations for the same comedy series in a single year.
Ralph: Breaking records, baby, and deservedly so! And that’s the beginning for her, hallelujah!
James: She deserves [it], so I’m not surprised. I have seen her fall asleep standing up, and then they say “Action!” and she’s back in character. She’s doing a lot and, as Ava Coleman says, she’s doing it well.
Williams: There’s one thing I’ve learned over the course of this experience, that I hope everyone takes heed to: Do not underestimate Quinta Brunson. That’s the worst possible thing you could do. When she says she’s gonna do something, it’s gonna get done. She came out with her first show as a juggernaut, and that speaks to how smart and talented she is, and how she’s refined her craft. Before everything, this was just an idea in her head; she had the vision for this show and what it could be when no one else did.
Ralph: Had this been 20 years ago, there were people who could have easily said, “It’s just a fluke.” This is no fluke, this is the real deal.
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