Quinta Brunson: ‘People have taken to Abbott Elementary because it’s a true workplace comedy’

The 32-year-old Philadelphian is the first Black woman to be nominated for three comedy Emmys in the same year. Ahead of the ceremony, she tells Ellie Harrison why her show is more than just ‘nicecore TV’ – and why it will not be delving into the topic of US gun massacres

‘I think we deserved a show that wasn’t about exploring Blackness’ (Jonny Marlow)

A few months ago, Quinta Brunson – the star of the hit mockumentary Abbott Elementary – was perusing a liquor store in Philadelphia. She was startled when, out of nowhere, a woman yelled in her direction, “Girl, you need to dump that boyfriend!” The woman was speaking to Brunson as if she was Janine, the indefatigable teacher she portrays in Abbott Elementary, who is dating a feckless, wannabe rapper called Tariq (Zack Fox). “People are so funny these days,” Brunson tells me, recalling the encounter. “I’m like,” – she puts on a gentle, teacherly voice – “‘Janine is a character that I play on TV.’ You’d be surprised how many people haven’t seen mockumentaries before, and had to realise it was totally fictional.”

Thanks to Abbott Elementary, Brunson – who is also the creator, executive producer and writer of the show – made Emmy history in July as the first Black woman to earn three nominations in the comedy category in the same year. The show also smashed ABC records – becoming the network’s first comedy premiere to quadruple ratings since its debut. So where did it all begin? After roles in acclaimed US comedies Big Mouth and A Black Lady Sketch Show, Brunson decided to make something a little closer to her heart – a show about an underfunded, poorly managed public school in Philadelphia. Abbott Elementary, although named after one of Brunson’s teachers, was actually inspired by her mother, who taught kindergarten. “I went to the school where she taught from first to fifth grade, so I’d ride there with her in the morning, hear all the teacher talk and be with her after school,” says the 32-year-old from her home in Los Angeles. She is wearing a relaxed, caramel-coloured top and large hoop earrings, and behind her on the wall are pictures of the Abbott Elementary set that were gifted to her by the show’s art department. “The character Barbara is very influenced by my mother – she was really respected, and younger teachers always got very enamoured with her.”

Abbott Elementary has endlessly been compared to fellow workplace mockumentaries The Office (which some casual viewers also thought was a real documentary when it launched on BBC Two in 2001) and Parks and Recreations. Like those shows, it finds humour in pen-pushing, broken systems and terrible bosses. As kindergarten teacher Barbara, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, tells her colleagues: “Teachers at schools like Abbott, we have to be able to do it all. We are ad men, social workers, therapists, second parents. Hell, sometimes we’re even first. Why? It sure ain’t the money.”

Beyond its de facto statement about poor public school funding in America, the gag-filled Abbott Elementary just wants to make people laugh – it doesn’t delve into race or class or politics. It’s just about teachers trying to teach their kids, or at least keep them relatively clean and alive. Brunson’s Janine, a fairly new teacher and one of only a couple from her cohort who didn’t immediately quit, is determined to make things better. She’s prone to asking the older, more weary teachers, “how do you stop yourself from caring too much?” and wearing chunky high-waisted belts. Brunson, who is 4ft 11in, has a defiantly tall screen presence, playing Janine with irrepressible chirpiness and warmth. 

There’s a reason Abbott Elementary, which has four Black leads, doesn’t focus on race. “Shows with white leads just get to be about the topic,” says Brunson. “Friends, for example, was about a group of friends. But a recent phenomenon, here in America, has been that the TV shows featuring Black leads are about race, and not just about these people living life. That was becoming frustrating to me as a viewer. The most prominent show that went against that was Insecure. And it landed, too. But I think America was in a real push-and-pull place with that, because Black people were wanting representation, and we had really got over a hump and had a lot of it, but then everything was exploring Blackness. I just wasn’t interested in doing that with Abbott, because I think we deserved a show that wasn’t about exploring Blackness.” 

She smiles. “It felt good to not talk about race all day – not because we want to avoid it but because it’s not the focus of these characters. When I thought about being in schools, or somewhere where working-class people are, who are not on Twitter, they’re just trying to do their jobs. Despite my mom being an extremely pro-Black person, a woman who used to work with the Black Panthers, she would just go to work and get things done. Clearly, there’s some value to that. I think it’s why people have taken to Abbott. It’s a true workplace comedy.”

Despite Brunson’s insistence that the show is a pure comedy, some fans have been pushing for her to tackle knottier issues. After the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May, Brunson was bombarded with requests for her to write a school shooting episode. In response, she tweeted: “People are that deeply removed from demanding more from the politicians they’ve elected, and are instead demanding ‘entertainment’. I can’t ask ‘are yall ok’ anymore because the answer is ‘no’.”

She shakes her head as I read out the tweet. “I was definitely at a place where I was fed up with nothing being done about guns in America. Just nothing,” she says. Brunson believes that after the horrific attacks at Columbine in 1999 and Sandy Hook in 2012, Americans were “desensitised” to mass shootings because no action was taken. “I only shared one message on Twitter because I honestly found it sickening. I know these people don’t know that what they were doing was so removed, but it is. If a shooting happens, the first thought shouldn’t be to ask a TV show to recreate said shooting. For what? The exact same energy you’re putting into my inbox can be put directly to your elected officials. If we elect these people and they make promises and tax dollars go to them, you have every right to ask for them to do more. I don’t really care about excuses any more. No. Get it done. It can’t possibly be Quinta Brunson’s responsibility to change things. I don’t work in office. I have a TV show, do you know what I mean?” She lets out an exasperated laugh. 

Brunson as the indefatigable Janine in ‘Abbott Elementary’ (ABC)

In a Guardian article earlier this year, Abbott Elementary was labelled as “nicecore TV”, along with sport comedy Ted Lasso and the musical Coda. Brunson was far from thrilled. “It’s a reductive and unnecessary label,” she says. “Why does that term exist? Who decides what is considered nicecore? And it’s all relative. Some people find Abbott to be abrasive – there was a huge audience who didn’t like that Jacob [a teacher played by Chris Perfetti] was gay, and there was a bunch of people who were like, ‘I can’t believe they’re rapping about coke, weed and meth and shrooms on this show on ABC.’ It’s so rarely the case that anything that has nice elements doesn’t also consider the darkness. Abbott is born out of the darkness of underfunded Philadelphia public schools.”

Brunson grew up in West Philadelphia, the youngest of five children (her name means “fifth” in Spanish). Comedy was always on in the family home. “My parents grew up on The Andy Griffith Show, The Bob Newhart Show and Leave it to Beaver, so they would rewatch those old shows with me,” she says. “Then my sisters were very into The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Friends… my oldest brother was more into the kings of comedy, so Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer. My youngest brother was super into Ace Ventura. When I go home and visit, a good comedy is what can bring us together, sit us down, make us be quiet and laugh together.” As she got older, Brunson developed her own taste. She remembers bringing the Napoleon Dynamite VHS into school and “trying to get everyone to understand what a masterpiece it was”.

Quinton wrote for and starred in ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ (HBO)

While at Temple University, Brunson took improv classes at the Second City (where Jordan Peele, Tina Fey and many more started out) and decided to pursue comedy as a career. She dropped out of college and within a few years she’d gone viral with her Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date Instagram series, released when the platform had only just added its video function. “This water goooooood!” she can be seen telling a waiter when taken to a restaurant by a nasty-but-rich man. It was from here that she got her foot in the door, landing her gigs like writing and acting on A Black Lady Sketch Show and appearing in the heaven-set comedy Miracle Workers.

How has she found working in the comedy industry, a place dominated by white men? “I don’t even think about being a Black woman who’s at a disadvantage in the industry,” she says, “because all in all I just want to make a good TV show. That’s my advice to other Black women. Like, who cares? There’s always going to be people who are gonna choose to think something of you because of the colour of your skin and your gender, but good work is undeniable.”

“I think about it a lot with LeBron James – someone could say he’s not a good basketball player but they’d be objectively wrong,” she says, through gleeful laughter. “If they were to say I was ‘less than’ because of my race and gender, they would, unfortunately, be wrong.” 

‘Abbott Elementary’ season two arrives on ABC in the US in September, with a UK airdate expected to follow. The first season is available to UK viewers on Disney+. The 2022 Emmys ceremony takes place on 12 September

Read more of The Independent’s Rising Stars interviews here