Fans of the ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” know the show wouldn’t hit the same without the child actors playing those sassy Philadelphia students. While the star-studded cast is decked with seasoned professionals and award-winning entertainers, folks might be surprised to know just how many child actors on the set had no prior acting background.
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Actress and comedian Janelle James took to Vulture’s “Good One Podcast” explaining how hard it was to find Black kids in Los Angeles to join the cast. “If I remember, in our early seasons, they had to go find kids,” she said. James plays Principal Ava on the show— a role which landed her nominations at the Emmys, the Golden Globe Awards and the NAACP Image Awards for her breakout role. But apparently, James wasn’t the only actor on set who was relatively new to the game.
“There aren’t a lot of dark-skinned Black kids in LA who are in acting,” she continued. “Acting, especially as a kid, is a very expensive thing. You have to have a parent that is free to take you around and do auditions and stuff. And that doesn’t really exist in the Black community.”
Because of this, James said the show’s producer and creator, Quinta Brunson, had to try other methods to reach potential actors. “We had to go find them,” James added. “A lot of them aren’t professional actors. Now they are, because a lot of them have grown up with the show, and I think that’s amazing.”
She continued saying, “A lot of them had never been on a set or anything before. I mean, we were learning together, is how I felt.” The Emmy award-winning show was renewed for a fifth season in January. James said this is a testament to the hard work of the actors and staff, calling the news “amazing at a time of shows going to three seasons and then sometimes without even a real ending.”
With no end in sight for the Abbott crew, James wanted to make sure people understood just how much they had to endure over the years. “The fact that we’re trucking along and the fact that we, especially Quinta, have done this through so many different calamities that people don’t think about it,” she said. “You shouldn’t think about it, because you’re just being entertained, but we’ve done this show through the pandemic, strikes, fires in LA, personal strife,” James added. “I think the show keeps getting better.”
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