Quinta Brunson recently revealed why she hasn’t directed an episode of her hit sitcom “Abbott Elementary.”
After winning the Variety Showrunner Award at SCAD TVfest, Brunon shared the stage with her co-star Sheryl Lee Ralph.
“There are a lot of talented people in the industry — and she is talented, ” Ralph said in her introduction to Brunson. And there are a lot of gifted people in the industry—and Quinta is gifted,” Ralph said. “But Quinta is also something we don’t often find. She is rare.”
“Everything trickles down from the top,” Ralph continued. “[She’s] the reason, five years into it, we still laugh and talk together. All of us as a cast, some of us even spend time together on the weekend.”
Brunson spoke about how there are no shortcuts to success.
“The ‘Abbott’ pilot is a result of me focusing on my craft,” she said. “If I didn’t sit there and learn how to properly write a pilot, how to do a three-act structure, none of this would’ve happened. I know there’s so many other ways to make it big and get famous and blah, blah, blah, but man, that craft will gift you all of this.”
Ralph spoke about how hard it is to make it in the entertainment business.
“If you think this is difficult, if you think this is hard, please find another occupation,” Ralph told the audience. “None of what we do is for the faint of heart. It is very difficult exposing your raw feeling and talent, your art, to people to have it rejected over and over and over again.”
When Ralph suggested she was “working on becoming a director,” Brunson said that having multiple roles is taxing.
Directors need prep time, meetings, shooting, then editing, and a director’s cut. “When we have writers do it, we lose them in the room for like four weeks, and it hurts,” she said. “I can’t afford to lose me in the room.”