Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 454th episode of Awards Chatter, the Hollywood

Reporter's Awards Podcast, I'm the host Scott Feinberg, and my guest today is a comedic

phenom who is blowing up at the moment, having created and served as a producer and writer

and the principal star of the ABC sitcom Abit Elementary, which has been described by the New

York Times as, quote, the best new network sitcom of the season, closed quote, and, quote,

the kind of comedy that network TV needs, closed quote. With the Guardian suggesting, quote,

it has parks and recreation sense of community, modern families precision tooling, and Ted Lasso's

charm, but is its own hilarious thing, closed quote. The first season of the show about the

struggles of teachers in a Philadelphia public school rolled out between December 2021 and April

2022, and quickly proved to be something special. Its second episode was ABC's highest-rated

installment of a comedy since the finale of Modern Family a couple of years earlier.

Ratings for the premiere were quadrupled after about a month, something that had never before

happened with an ABC comedy. Season 1 overall averaged about 4 million viewers per episode.

The show was renewed for a second season, a month before the first season's finale,

and the first season ended up with a 100% rating from critics on Rod and Tomatoes.

Oh, and earlier this month, the show received seven Emmy nominations as well, including best comedy

series, making it this year's only network show nominated for the top drama or comedy awards.

And my guess is personally nominated in three categories, producing, writing, and acting,

which is a total never before achieved in a single year by a black person.

I'm talking about one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2022, Quinta Brunson.

Over the course of our conversation, the 32-year-old denied discussed what led her to comedy,

and to create web content, including what proved to be the first viral Instagram video,

...