Class act
Chris Perfetti learns lessons from 'Abbott Elementary'
Chris Perfetti plays Jacob Hill on "Abbott Elementary."
Chris Perfetti, left, and Sheryl Lee Ralph in a Season 5 episode of "Abbott Elementary."
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In recent years, "Abbott Elementary" has been the only broadcast network show to compete for Best Comedy in various television awards contests.It's the standard bearer, if you will, for broadcast series, and the pressure is real. "The crown is heavy," says Chris Perfetti, who plays Jacob Hill on the ABC venture.
"It's not lost on me," he continues. "Certainly, being the only network show is humbling. We work so hard and so quickly on these, and these award shows always kind of land smack in the middle of our production schedule. So, any opportunity to pop out and just take it all in is fabulous … and I'm grateful for it."
A Screen Actors Guild Award winner for "Abbott," Perfetti says he knew when the series began it was special.
"I think Quinta (Brunson) wrote very specific people — she wrote kind of a seven-headed monster so any combination (of characters) of them works," he says.
Sparring with Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tyler James Williams, Lisa Ann Walter, Janelle James and Brunson is a dream come true.
"They, for some crazy reason, are unbelievably generous and kind as well," he says. "I'm just trying to get on their level."
Currently, Perfetti is enjoying scenes with James, who plays the school's principal.
"It's comedy gold," he says of the partnership. "I'm having fun doing it."
When "Abbott" began, he could see Jacob as a character. As the seasons have unfolded, "the line between Jacob and Chris is getting ever blurrier, and I think that's because I divulged too much about my real life to Quinta. It's also just being able to be with a character for a very long time, which I never have. I feel like I'm taking on some of him and he's taking on some of me."
When the New York native started in the business, he thought he might occasionally direct.
"And the last couple of years have taught me that the more I can sit with something in that uncomfortable, unfinished phase, which actors don't have to do a lot, the better I am," Perfetti says. "Every episode, we're sort of making from scratch and on the fly. Directing TV doesn't seem like my story, but anything's possible."
This year, he also starred in the film "Twinless," a dark comedy about a young man whose twin is hit by a car and killed.
Playing a friend of the dead man, he got a chance to see a different side of comedy and stretch in another way.
Now, though, it's back to work for Perfetti, who was nominated last month for a Critics Choice Award. Playing on "Abbott Elementary," he says, has been a dream.
Jacob, he says, is a social puppy dog — overeager. "He feels like a Shakespearean clown to me. It was all there on the page for me," Perfetti says.
A teacher? "I think I could be one," Perfetti says. "I think I'd enjoy that."
"Abbott Elementary" airs Wednesdays on ABC.
