As Abbott Elementary returns for Season 5 this fall, series creator and star Quinta Brunson is questioning when the show could come to a close.
“We are so fortunate and blessed to be on a network TV show for five seasons, and for people to still be fans,” Brunson said of the ABC sitcom’s future in an interview with Bustle published on Monday, June 30. “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.”
Brunson noted that she’s also thinking about her own next career steps. “Right now, I’m receiving scripts, and waiting for that moment that feels like, ‘Oh man, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for,’” she shared. “Abbott has been so successful, and I want to use that success to get other people’s projects off the ground.”
While Brunson has won an Emmy for her role as second-grade teacher Janine Teagues, the actress said she’s “always interested in playing against type.” She explained, “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.”
Disney / Pamela Littky
Brunson even teased that she may take a break from TV in her personal life after catching up on shows such as And Just Like That…, Dying for Sex, and Andor in her new home theater. “After that, it’s going to be a wrap [on TV],” she told the outlet. “I think I’ll be a movie girl.”
Abbott Elementary, which premiered in 2021, follows a group of the titular Philadelphia public school as they engage in hilarious hijinks while trying to help their students succeed. The series also stars Sheryl Lee Ralph as Barbara Howard, Tyler James Williams as Gregory Eddie, Janelle James as Ava Coleman, Lisa Ann Walter as Melissa Schemmenti, Chris Perfetti as Jacob Hill, and William Stanford Davis as Mr. Johnson.
The Season 4 finale, which aired in April, ended on a high note for the main cast of characters, as Janine managed to impress Gregory’s father, Martin (Orlando Jones), by being herself during a school field trip, leading to a sweet reconciliation between the father and son.
“We like to frequently do episodes that are classic sitcom tropes where we subvert the trope and use that to our benefit,” co-showrunner Justin Halpern told TV Insider earlier this year. “And so in this instance, every sitcom has an episode of ‘You’re going to meet my parents for the first time!’”
He continued, “We wanted to have that suddenly flip and cease to be about whether or not Gregory’s dad’s going to like Janine and instead get to something deeper, which is Gregory getting an understanding of his father that he didn’t have previously and to get a little bit of sense of what it was like to be Gregory as a kid.”
Abbott Elementary, Season 5, Fall 2025, ABC