When I invited Quinta Brunson to sit down for an interview in my garden in Montecito, I knew what you probably knew about her: She started making comedy videos, which led to writing a few pilots for streaming services, and along the way, she got several acting roles. Then she created Abbott Elementary. And doesn’t everybody know this show? It’s got fans of all ages, and many of them are Emmy voters: Quinta was the youngest Black woman nominated in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series category, and the first Black woman nominated for three categories in the comedy category (she won for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series). But what I also knew about Quinta, whose star is bursting wide, is that she just turned 33 years old and is fully ready to receive everything that’s happening, even at such velocity. Because my rise started at exactly the same time—I know that when it comes this way, it means you are fully ready to receive it.
Oprah: Congratulations on the huge success of Abbott Elementary, the Emmy nominations, and your Emmy…but this has been coming since that first dance recital when you saw your family, all of them standing there cheering you?
Quinta Brunson: Yeah. Kismet. Performing and writing and creating, producing—I feel like I’m still doing it for my family. They’re the best focus group because growing up, we all as a family used to laugh together despite being a multigenerational household. Having these different people with vastly different senses of humor, vastly different educational levels. The programs that brought us together were meaningful to me.
This is what’s interesting to me: For Abbott Elementary to have struck the nerve that it has, you had to have a really clear intention. You know, intention is like my religion. So what was your intention in creating that show?
I saw a feeling missing in the marketplace of television, really. I’ve studied marketing and business, and when something is missing, it’s an opportunity to make something. And then creatively, I didn’t have anything I really could watch with my parents and enjoy. We weren’t having the same laughs—and having the same laugh is really important to me. I think it’s spiritual, and it’s healing. I wanted to make something that brought everyone together.
Had it been sitting with you for a while? Had it been bubbling up in you?
Yes. There were two shows I sold before Abbott that I was well-intentioned about. But as you know with being intentional, even if that thing fails, it’s showing you another way. I just took so many lessons from those shows that weren’t picked up. Then I was with my mom a year and a half before she was about to retire. Barbara is based off her. My mom was my kindergarten teacher, and I went to the school where she taught for five more years. So when I go back to visit my mom at school, you know how there’s this warmth that you haven’t felt in a while but you’re looking at it with a different lens now?
Right.
My mom was pushing me to get back to Philadelphia because she couldn’t quite see the vision for my career yet. And I didn’t like that she was there very late for an open house that her principal made them stay late for. A parent walks in at 7:58. And I was livid. I was like, how could you not get here earlier? But that woman was a nurse, and that was as soon as she could get there. It was a parent my mom really wanted to talk to. I sat at the desk watching it. That’s when the idea came to me just so fully fleshed out. This is what I want to make next. This show about these people.
So you got a broadcast network to okay an entire prime-time show with five Black lead characters—and not so often does that happen. I read what you said in The New York Times that there’s so many shows where white characters get to be themselves, be white all the time. And that you’re not doing a show where you’re talking about being Black all day long. How do you see yourself, and your generation, changing the conversation around representation on television?
I see my generation taking the next steps. We now are able to tell more nuanced stories. And I think Abbott is a part of that.
By the time you get to this age and the rest of the world gets to see who you are and what you’ve been working on, it’s actually everything that’s ever happened to you up until this moment.
Every single thing I’ve done has led to now. I embrace all of it. But I do believe it’s important to know the direction you’re going in. I had a dance teacher who said, “Like a ballerina, you should feel like you have a string tied from your head to the ceiling. So no matter what the move is, you’re always gonna be brought back to that center, that string.” I think about life that way. No matter what move I do, I feel like I have a string connecting me to the top of the universe, God, whatever people believe in. If I don’t veer too far away from it, it makes everything I do worth it.
I think that’s interesting, because you were raised Jehovah’s Witness, but you don’t consider yourself a practicing Jehovah’s Witness now.
No. No. I’m agnostic—my mom’s gonna hate me, but I believe in people. I believe that God is in people. And I think it’s a lot of the ethos behind Abbott. Like, everyday people just trying their best is so moving to me. It makes me emotional. When someone gets themselves out of bed and goes to work and makes a difference for a person who is having a hard day, or just waves at a person—those are moments to me that are godlike.
That God is showing Himself through all of us.
Mm-hmm.
So you went to a progressive elementary school where the curriculum centered on Black history.
Yes. It makes all the difference. I was so fortunate. Every lesson stemmed from Black history first. It wasn’t an absence of overall American history. But just re-centering it around Black and African history. It made our history an anchor and not a weight.
I did not have that, but I read everything I could get my hands on, and I will say for me, having a sense of where I came from made all the difference.
It anchored us in knowing what the world was and knowing how to navigate being Black in this country. I think it’s really important for Black children to know their full history.
All right—stepping back, you wrote in your book, She Memes Well, “You never know which people, places, and experiences are going to shift your perspective until after you’ve left them behind and had some time to look back.” So I want to know, when you look back, which experience has shifted your perspective the most?
That’s a heavy one for me. Something I think about often is when I was about 20, and my father had cancer. He doesn’t anymore, but at the time, I was so obsessed with my boyfriend in Chicago who wanted me to come visit. He was so possessive and immature that if I didn’t go, it would have been the end of the world. So I went to see my dad in the hospital, and then I left. Years later I thought, How could I? My dad had cancer. It doesn’t matter that it was able to be removed. That’s where I should have been. I talked to my dad about it, and he said, “Yeah, you know, it was kind of sad that you left.” I will never not be there for my family again. So much of what I do is about family and about making sure that they’re safe and secure and cared about.
What’s the best moment of grace you ever remember receiving?
It’s the same moment. I can’t believe my dad forgave me. I should not have been forgiven, but I was. Forgiveness is a big act of God, in my opinion. When people can find in their hearts to forgive other human beings. So that’s for sure the biggest act of grace.
What’s the most memorable lesson you learned from a teacher?
Oh, my teacher Mr. Connor. One kid called another kid a liar. And Mr. Connor got very upset. “Don’t call him a liar. A liar is who a person is. A lie is what someone did.” That stuck with me forever.
Okay, here’s one for you. What’s a question you think every woman should ask herself?
Do I really like myself when I’m in my room by myself? It’s the secret key to freedom. Not Does this guy like me? or this girl or this company—do I actually enjoy who I am by myself with myself? If the answer is no, then you do some work to make sure you do.
That’s so powerful. Okay, what is your favorite word and why?
Favorite word. Oh, can I do two?
You can do two.
Insecurity and selfishness. I think about how they share a fence and how insecurity can really veer over into selfish town. I think about the awareness of knowing which one is in control.
So this is for the New Year. How would you describe your intention for 2023?
Ooh. My intention for 2023 is to ride the wave. I want to relax. I don’t know if I’m gonna get to do that. But I just want to live in what I have built so far.
So what’s a resolution you never make, and why?
To stop drinking. People make that one. I love a good cocktail. And I like to celebrate. (Laughter)
Last question: How many seasons do you want of Abbott Elementary?
Oprah, I can’t say that! I don’t know…I want everyone to be taken care of. I want my cast to feel good, that they can take care of themselves. That they can have all the freedoms they want after the show is done. The writers and producers and our crew—I don’t want them to have any financial worries. And I want them to feel proud of the work they did, even when that work is ending. So however many seasons it takes to get that. It could be three. Could be 10.
