Chris Perfetti (‘Abbott Elementary’): We were ‘adamant about showing Jacob win a little bit’ in Season 3 [Exclusive Video Interview]
Being a series regular on a network TV series comes with its challenges. Just ask “Abbott Elementary” star Chris Perfetti, who had performed mostly on stage and in small roles on TV before booking the part of Jacob Hill on the ABC sitcom, and had to acclimate himself to working full time in the medium.
“I was — and at times, still am — plagued by the permanence of film and TV,” the actor admits during a recent webchat with Gold Derby (watch the full exclusive video interview above). “It’s hard to go to sleep sometimes knowing that that’s how it’s going to be forever. What I love so much about working on a play is that you always get to do it again the next night and the work becomes about how you make that real for yourself — and you spend a month figuring out all the different ways that it could go. And in TV and film, that’s just not the case.”
But three seasons into “Abbott Elementary,” Perfetti feels like he’s having “a completely different experience” from when he started on the show — and he’s even found some benefits in having to work at the breakneck pace that doing network TV requires. “There is a beautiful, sort of cathartic experience about being able to let go of it and being open to the possibility that whatever is coming through you at that moment — especially if you have an ensemble like mine, that you trust implicitly and that you are inspired by — there’s a flow that just kind of takes over,” he says.
As Jacob, Perfetti plays the socially awkward but ever-supportive history teacher at the show’s namesake Philadelphia public school whose many idiosyncrasies often lead to him being taunted by not just his students but also his coworkers. While this no doubt makes for some of the Emmy-winning series’ most comedic moments, Perfetti shares it’s important to both him and the show’s writers that Jacob isn’t always just the butt of the joke.
“I think one of the beauties of this character is that, like, yes, that may be inherent that Jacob is always putting his foot in his mouth or being the butt of a joke, but it depends on what that joke is and who’s making it and whether one was made five minutes ago — all of those things inform how he responds to that,” the actor explains. “I felt like, particularly this year, we were really kind of adamant about showing Jacob win a little bit. And I think it’s really important to this genre to show people as three-dimensional and not as cartoon characters. If you kind of just do the same joke over and over again, I think you insult your audience a little bit and lose their trust.”
Season 3 of the workplace comedy also continues to explore the growing friendship between Jacob and first-grade teacher Gregory Eddie (Tyler James Williams) — which meant Perfetti had the opportunity to share a whole lot more scenes with Williams. “I find being in a scene with Tyler to just be incredibly grounding,” Perfetti highlights about working with his co-star. “It’s like a new color of that thing that I feel with every person in this cast, which is a trust and safety. And Tyler, I know, wants to go where I want to go, and vice versa. And I think our writers have taken a big swing and really afforded us an opportunity to have long scenes together, long two-person scenes. That’s not really normal, I feel like, for a sitcom, or really for our show, and so it’s just been a real gift.”
It’s in scenes with Jacob in which viewers get to see the otherwise-reserved Gregory let his walls come down a bit and display his more vulnerable side. But what are some of the qualities Gregory is able to bring out in Jacob? “I feel like it’s also really afforded Jacob an opportunity to dream, to tap his heart,” Perfetti argues. “Jacob is, from the get-go, a very, sort of lofty character who thinks he can change the world, but there’s something about this relationship between his two good friends that I feel like he’s fighting for love. And that’s probably a lot of the reason why he broke up with his boyfriend [Larry Owens‘ Zach] this season.”
Indeed, it’s in Gregory in whom Jacob confides that his and Zach’s relationship has been bumpy for the past seven months and that he wishes to break up with his boyfriend. Gregory tells his friend to just rip off the band-aid and leave his partner, but Jacob has other plans. Intent on not hurting Zach’s feelings, he instead tries to provoke his boyfriend by doings things he despises — like leaving their kitchen sponge unsqueezed and the microwave door open — in the hope it’ll prompt him to call it quits. But while Jacob’s efforts do cause Zach to confront him, it’s Jacob who ultimately announces the wish to part ways.
Would he have had the courage to do so had Gregory not offered his advice? “No,” Perfetti asserts. “I think it would have been four or five years… before anything changed.”
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