Quinta Brunson and the Confidence of Her Emmy-Winning Show, Her Own Personal Avengers and Role of ‘Abbott Elementary’ Amid Threats to Education

From the jump, Quinta Brunson has been rewarded for doing exactly what Quinta Brunson wants to do, with her ABC sitcom, Abbott Elementary, earning seven Emmy nominations in its inaugural season. This year is no different. 

Brunson received her fourth nomination for lead actress in a comedy series for her performance as Janine Teagues on the workplace sitcom — a statue she took home in 2023, when she became the second Black woman to win the award. She is also the third-most-nominated Black woman lead in a comedy series, behind The Jeffersons’ Isabel Sanford and Black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross. 

Abbott Elementary, for which Brunson also serves as creator and executive producer, wrapped up its fourth season by nabbing six Emmy nominations, including best comedy and best writing for a comedy series, which Brunson won for the series’ pilot episode in 2022.

“We were very fortunate to have a pretty killer first season according to both us and critics and the audience,” she tells THR. “So that was my confirmation to just keep cooking.”

After finishing what Brunson said she felt was one of the show’s best seasons to date, and as work was underway on a fifth season, she talked with THR about the success of the show and what the future holds for the teachers at West Philly’s Abbott Elementary.

Does the recognition the show has received add any pressure to how you approach the next season?

I think what’s special is that we start writing our next season before Emmy nominations come out. There’s something nice about that, because by the time they come around we’re already about seven episodes in as far as outlining it. So if nothing else, it makes us want to keep up the good work, but that was a part of the ethos of Abbott in the first place. We don’t want to get caught up in the prestige. Our goal here has always been to maintain an engine that keeps rolling and keeps providing a high-quality comfort sitcom.

We’re so grateful for these nominations, but I think our goal here, and what’s most important, has always been for us to maintain an engine that keeps rolling and keeps providing a high quality comfort sitcom.

It feels like in season four you had one of your better seasons.

I think so, too.

So where do you go as a creative outfit with the show headed into season five?

We were just having a conversation about this in the (writers’ room). The beauty of the sitcom is that you are coming to see a certain thing every episode. You want the hijinks of the school.

As opposed to a prestigious drama where you are following a kind of arc, in a sitcom you want to see this character do the thing you know they’re going to do, and then figure out how are they going to get out of trouble this time? That’s what makes you feel like you’re with your friends.

My siblings and I were just talking about — motivated by Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s passing —the comfort of knowing on (The Cosby Show) that those kids were going to do something that the mother and father in that show would have to deal with. That’s really important and I really value that in the sitcom. I think it’s a unique art form and it’s special and it makes me feel just as happy as I feel like when I used to read Sunday comics, you know?

I was actually thinking before we talked about how perfectly Malcolm-Jamal Warner would have been in the world of Abbott. He just seems like someone who would have made an appearance.

He fits in a lot of worlds. He was a very amazing actor and I think it’s, you know, underrated.

As a creator I have so much respect for the legends it’s even hard for me sometimes to venture, like Cree Summer (who is on the show), working with them. They’re royalty to me. But that was a dream casting of mine, Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

Were there any moments in season four you had been holding on to, giddy to get into the show? Are there any for season five you’re excited to finally get to use?

A big one that stood out in season four was the episode “Dad Fight” with Gregory (Tyler James Williams). That was something I had wanted to do since season one, but it meant so much more to happen in season four instead of happening with [the] character when we don’t know him that well. And everyone was on 10, which was really special to me. To be able to have Zack Fox’s character be part of that story, that’s something we couldn’t have done back then. Tyler did a fantastic job with that. And it was so exciting because I got to have another actor, Langston Kerman, in that. These are my friends. These are my Avengers. 

We definitely have stuff like that this season where we’ve been thinking about it since season one, but now it feels like the right time to do those stories.

At what point do you think you’ll feel you’ve run out of runway?

I feel like my show still has so much life left in it. There’s so much story to tell, and I feel like audiences feel the same way. So that alone is the thing that makes me want it to stay alive. If ever it comes to a point where this feels like we’re not alive anymore, I think that is a sign to let it rest.

But Abbott was created to hopefully run for a long time. There are other shows that aren’t, and that’s OK. It’s something that I hope to do one day and make like a miniseries. There’s beauty in that kind of storytelling, just as much as there’s beauty in creating something that can last forever.