{"id":699030,"date":"2025-11-13T18:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:51:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-11-13T18:51:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:51:00","slug":"abbott-elementary-star-tyler-james-williams-wants-to-show-you-layers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/abbott-elementary-star-tyler-james-williams-wants-to-show-you-layers\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott Elementary Star Tyler James Williams Wants to Show You Layers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tTyler James Williams is one of those rare entertainers who achieved success as a child actor and successfully transitioned into an adult star with a career of equally notable acclaim.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn actor since the age of 4, Williams\u2019 longevity on the silver screen began with Sesame Street, <\/em>on which he starred from 2000 to 2005, after which he landed his breakout role \u2014 and an NAACP Image Award for outstanding actor in a comedy series<\/a> \u2014 playing the titular character in Chris Rock\u2019s semi-autobiographical sitcom Everybody Hates Chris<\/em> from 2005 to 2009. A stretch of recurring and main roles followed on series such as The Walking Dead<\/em> and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders,<\/em> as Williams also dipped his toes into film, starring in Justin Simien\u2019s Dear White People<\/em> in 2014, Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Detroit<\/em> in 2017 and Lee Daniels\u2019 The United States vs. Billie Holiday<\/em> in 2021.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was in 2021 that Williams also began starring in his second career-defining TV role as Gregory on Quinta Brunson\u2019s hit ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary<\/em>. His portrayal of the anal West Philadelphia public school teacher earned him three Emmy nominations and one Golden Globe Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, Williams talks with The Hollywood Reporter <\/em>about growing up in a family of entertainers \u2014 his younger brothers Tyrel Jackson Williams and Tylen Jacob Williams are also actors \u2014 the trauma of being a child star, bringing dimension to the portrayals of men onscreen and why he\u2019ll need a break from TV after Abbott.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tCongrats on season five. You\u2019ve now starred on more seasons of Abbott Elementary<\/em> than Everybody Hates Chris. <\/em>Did you think the show would have the longevity that it\u2019s had when you signed on?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFor sure. I think there\u2019s a certain alchemy to making a long-running show, and Quinta had a really clean idea, and I love a clean idea. A workplace comedy in the school, that\u2019s something that can run for episodes and episodes and episodes. So I knew that it had the potential to, and then when we shot the pilot, I knew that we had the right players to do so \u2014 not to sound cocky by any means.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fandom around Abbott<\/em> continues to be particularly strong, especially on social media<\/a>. Do you follow the convos on X after each episode?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo. No. God no. I don\u2019t even have that app<\/a>lication on my phone. I try to stay as far away from any of the conversations about any of the art that I make as possible. It\u2019s my job to make it. I don\u2019t need to micromanage how it\u2019s perceived.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the opportunity for Abbott<\/em> first came along, where were you professionally? Were you looking to do another TV series where you had a main role? Were you interested in more film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI remember after I finished Chris<\/em>, I specifically said, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do another network TV show for a very long time\u201d because, as grateful as I am and as great as Abbott<\/em> is, it still shoots eight months out of the year. There\u2019s a certain amount of fatigue that comes with that, and it\u2019s more physical than anything. That was the reason why if I was going to come back to something on network TV, it was going to be something that was really good with people that I really liked to work with. It checked all my boxes, and it was a story worth telling. To me, that was worth the four, five, six, seven-year fatigue that comes with it, especially doing the grind of a 22-episode show. Once Abbott<\/em> is done, I\u2019m going to be in the exact same place again. I\u2019m not going to want to jump right into another network show.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tTyler James Williams and Quinta Brunson in \u2018Abbott Elementary.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney\/Gilles Mingasson<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhat was it specifically about Gregory that attracted you, and are you like him in any way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was the way that Quinta saw him. Quinta saw Gregory in a way that I see a lot of the men in my life and a lot of men in general<\/a>. As flawed as they may be, they\u2019re just trying to do right, and they\u2019re not always given the tools to make the right decisions, but they\u2019re trying. For that reason, I think I\u2019ve grown to be more like him. And I think that\u2019s kind of a symptom of doing a show for a very long time. You spend eight months out of the year in this person\u2019s skin. At some point, the line gets blurry, and that\u2019s also part of why you need a break after the fact. Earlier on, there was a bigger chasm between Gregory and myself, and over time we\u2019ve bled into each other, which is really beautiful. But I think at some point I\u2019m going to have to detach from him and that\u2019s going to be hard.<\/p>\n

\n\tHas the lens people see you through now as a result of playing Gregory impacted other roles and opportunities you\u2019re offered?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it\u2019s layers and complexity that people are seeing. I think one of the better examples that we\u2019re seeing of that right now is Teyana Taylor. You see somebody do one thing and that\u2019s how you\u2019re introduced to them, but that\u2019s never the end of the story. And I think that\u2019s ultimately what led to the conversation about Gregory. This is a guy who is way more layered than you would believe, but we should probably question why you believe that. That\u2019s the point of it. Why do you think this is a one-dimensional character? And for me, why do you think that I\u2019m a one-dimensional artist? That\u2019s part of the work, I think, ultimately for anybody who\u2019s being introduced on any one show or any one genre or any one medium or art form, but that\u2019s kind of the treasure in it all as well. You get to turn people on to the things that they didn\u2019t know that you were capable of doing, and seeing you as a more fleshed-out human being.<\/p>\n

\n\tBoth of your brothers are actors as well. What was it like growing up in your household? Was it auditions all the time? Were you all competitive?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was definitely auditions all the time. We spent more time, I think, stomping the streets of New York City, going to and from auditions, than we did doing anything else. But it never was competitive and never has been. My brothers and I, we all live together now, and it still isn\u2019t. I think we all have a very good understanding of what the industry is, and I think so many people see it as the industry is their antagonist. [It\u2019s just,] \u201cI\u2019m not getting jobs,\u201d and it\u2019s not that so much goes into putting out a show that the fact that a show ever gets made is incredible, let alone packaged together with the right actors and all of that. We\u2019ve always had a good understanding of that. So, it\u2019s never been competitive, but it has been incredibly supportive, and in more ways than just being a cheering section. We talk about projects and things that are coming up, and who\u2019s reading for what and what are you hearing about that. And one thing that we do that I really love is at the end of the year, we\u2019ll go back through all the things that came in, and we\u2019ll take a look at what actually even made it to screen so we can maintain that context going into the next year. I think we keep each other in a good place artistically. Very few people can have that.<\/p>\n

\n\tA greater light has been shed on the troublesome experiences of child actors in the past couple of years. You\u2019ve labeled your own as \u201ctraumatic.\u201d How so?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a weird place to be because actor is a profession. That comes with certain standards. And child is a position. So those two things don\u2019t really go well together. What was very difficult was the amount of people who didn\u2019t respect me as an actor and as a child. You can hear that. You can hear somebody talking to you like a child. Although a lot of times, at that point, I was doing more TV than most adults. But I think the thing that makes it even harder is nobody tells you that once you turn 18, your career starts over fresh. You did nothing. And I don\u2019t have an issue with that being the case. You have to kind of earn your position in this world, which I\u2019m a huge advocate for, but it would be nice to say that. It would be nice to let [children] know that.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe have a lot of kids on Abbott<\/em>, and every now and then, a parent will ask me, \u201cWhat should I do?\u201d and \u201cHow should this go?\u201d and I make sure they know that you can do whatever you want to do right now. But when she turns 18 or he turns 18, this is all going out the door, and they have to start over anyway. So, prepare them for that, prepare them for the idea that, also, it\u2019s not going to be based on, are you just a cute kid who is more charismatic than usual? You have to come out here and bang with the adults. And we work really hard, and we train really hard, and they have to learn how to do that. So I think that was the hardest part. No one tells you that that\u2019s what you\u2019re going to have to do, and you have to slowly figure that out over time.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tTichina Arnold and Tyler James Williams on \u2018Everybody Hates Chris.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett Collection<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tYou said the turning point for you was at the age of 17, when you just started turning roles down and you got an acting coach. How did that change things?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s when I figured that out. Like, oh, I have to go back to the drawing board. It\u2019s one of the best times of my life now looking back on it, just locking yourself in an actor studio seven days a week until three, four o\u2019clock in the morning, putting on plays, going over roles that you would never read for and testing out those muscles. I highly recommended it to anybody, one, making that transition, but then also, two, starting in general. I think so often people have these goals of the show\u2019s release and the premiere and the photos and the press. You have to fall in love with the process when no one sees it. Find a black box theater with a group of other really hungry actors, and if they\u2019re the only ones who see this, that\u2019s got to be enough. So I look back on that time now and go, we were hustling and grinding and doing everything that we possibly could, but we were doing it from a really pure place of just wanting to be great. And part of me wishes I could go back to that. Now I have to manufacture that feeling in another way for the next step.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve started talking more about your Crohn\u2019s disease. Has managing it had any impact on your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely. There were projects where I was in really bad shape while we were shooting them, and I look back on those things now and I\u2019m like, what could that have been if I was actually at full capacity? But I think part of the issue with that was that I wasn\u2019t telling anybody what I was going through. I think there\u2019s always going to be this fear with anybody who\u2019s going through anything that seems outside of the norm that it\u2019s going to be used against you and it\u2019ll be one of the reasons why you don\u2019t work. But what usually dispels that is once you start telling people, you\u2019ll find that people rally behind you. And that\u2019s what happened with me. So it affected the way I worked and the way I chose to work. But also, you can\u2019t pour from an empty cup. And a lot of the stuff that happened at that time I [was sick] informed a lot of my performances after the fact for sure. I needed to go to that place and understand that place to be able to perform from that place as well. There\u2019s still a well of stuff that I haven\u2019t really even tapped into from that. So, I\u2019m incredibly grateful for the experience, and I think that\u2019s the point of stuff like that. If you\u2019re going to go through something that\u2019s awful and horrible and hard, there\u2019s nothing better than finding a way to use that later.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou now have three Emmy nominations under your belt for your portrayal of Gregory on Abbott Elementary<\/em>. How bad do you want that win?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYou know what? I told myself once Abbott<\/em>\u2018s award run started and I felt like, okay, we\u2019re going to be in this for a while, that I wasn\u2019t going to let it get to me one way or another because I think that\u2019s another way of taking in the audience too much. It\u2019s the same thing as reading comments or checking in to see what people are saying after an episode. And I think people begin to modify their performance slightly based on those things. I\u2019ve also been around enough that this isn\u2019t my first awards run. I remember when we did Everybody Hates Chris<\/em> and we got nominated for a Globe in the first year and then fell out of contention, yet that show stood the test of time, even 20-something years later. I\u2019m not really looking at what\u2019s happening right now. If I made something that audiences can appreciate 20, 30 years later, that\u2019s where I won. That\u2019s ultimately what I\u2019m here for. People don\u2019t necessarily remember who won best supporting actor in 1986, but they very clearly remember, as we saw this past year in the [Emmy] memorial, the minute you see Malcolm Jamal Warner, everybody\u2019s heart breaks. That\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here. I don\u2019t want to ask anything else after that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyler James Williams is one of those rare entertainers who achieved success as a child actor and successfully transitioned into an adult star with a career of equally notable acclaim. An actor since the age of 4, Williams\u2019 longevity on the silver screen began with Sesame Street, on which he starred from 2000 to 2005,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}