Quinta Brunson

The creator and star of 'Abbott Elementary' talks Emmys, mental health, and the meaning of success 

- CT JONES

For Quinta Brunson, the end of the months-long SAG-AFTRA strike doesn’t mean a return to the familiar. Instead, it’s a chance for the Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, and actress to join her same set with a brandnew view on life, hard work, and stability.

The creator of ABC’s hit sitcom Abbott Elementary, Brunson has experienced a meteoric rise in Hollywood that many Tinseltown hopefuls could only dream of. After a number of viral video series including The Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date landed her a production deal at BuzzFeed, Brunson leveraged her internet experience and sharp comedic timing into two network pilots. But they never aired. So Brunson turned to her hometown of Philadelphia, taking inspiration from her mother’s longtime career as a teacher, and Abbott Elementary was born. For Brunson, the work hasn’t slowed since.

“The most hectic a day could get is while we’re filming, writing, and airing,” Brunson explains, rattling off a daunting day of production as easily as she spells her name. “And then there’s an event after work, so I have hair and makeup for that, and then the event, and then I get home and go to sleep and have to start it all over.”

It’s an intimidating process on its own, one made more exhausting by the fact that Brunson wrote Abbott while most of America was lost in a cycle of fear and lack of work during the pandemic. When the WGA and SAG strikes hit, the writer best celebrated for almost single-handedly reviving the network sitcom had to do something much harder: learn how to take care of herself.