Series creator and star Quinta Brunson indicated that “Abbott Elementary” may soon come to a close, just days ahead of the cast’s highly anticipated appearance on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (airing July 9). “Abbott Elementary” is set to begin its fifth season in the fall, and its first four outings have not only been a ratings hit for ABC but raked in scores of award nominations, a rarity for any network series in 2025.
“We are so fortunate and blessed to be on a network TV show for five seasons, and for people to still be fans,” the Emmy-winning actress and writer told Bustle. “That being said, I have cast members who would love to pursue other projects, and our show is very time-consuming. We shoot about seven months out of the year. That can stop people from being able to do a lot of other things.”
The other cast members — which include Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Williams Stanford Davis, and Chris Perfetti — aren’t the only ones looking to explore other projects. Brunson said that she’s “interested in playing against type.”
“I think that’s any actor’s dream. Right now my type is ‘Janine’ and ‘teacher.’ I’m looking forward to moving away from that a little bit,” she said.
Brunson added that she’s receiving scripts right now and “waiting for that moment that feels like, ‘Oh man, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.” She also said that she wanted to use the success of “Abbott Elementary” to help “get other people’s projects off the ground.”
Last month at IndieWire and Disney’s FYC Pass the Remote panel series, Brunson described the amount of passion the writers work to pour into each episode, no matter how difficult it can be to deliver 22 episodes a season.
“But I cannot tell you how hard it is to not make absolute garbage,” she said. “You start going [into Episode] 22 like ‘Honestly, I could phone it in.’ We’ve seen other shows do it. We don’t want to do that. We want to continue to make good television. We want every episode to be a surprise. We want you to not [say] ‘I’m going to go back to the tired episode of the tired show.’ We would like to keep it compelling.”