Chris Perfetti Reflects On Abbott Elementary, Karaoke, and Growing With Jacob Hill
After five seasons on Abbott Elementary, Chris Perfetti is more connected than ever to his character Jacob Hill. Speaking with Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado, he opens up about their similarities and the iconic karaoke episode.
Despite taking on stage work and his recent role in Twinless between seasons, Perfetti finds it easy to return to Jacob. “I never expected to be with a character this long, but I think similarly to starting work on a new play, the way I get myself there is I just flood my body and brain with information,” he explained. “I try to figure out absolutely everything because if I have all of that info, I can go and just be free, and I can make the best decision possible as the character.”
Now five seasons in, the foundation is solid. “We've learned quite a bit about Jacob. Quinta and I spoke pretty extensively when we started the show, but now we know a lot of what has made him the way that he is,” Perfetti said. “So I think because I know all of that and I get to be with him every day, which I also never expected I would get to act every day, it feels like my proximity to him is way closer than some of the other characters I've played or certainly when I start something new. He just feels like he's there in my back pocket.”
“The messed up thing is our writers are also, as they get to know us, they're writing more and more of us into these characters,” Perfetti laughed. “So the line between Jacob and Chris is getting blurrier and blurrier,”
He pointed to season 4’s fan favorite “Karaoke” episode as an example. “I grew up a huge fan of 90s grunge rock so I know that's why Papa Roach and that whole list of songs. I don't know if it made it into the episode, but at one point Barbara sat me down and she was like, ‘I'm really worried about you.’ And she went through all of the songs that Jacob was planning on singing in that episode,” he said. “I'm sure they stole that from me, but gosh, I mean, Quinta knows I do the Wordle every day. That made it into an episode. I need to learn to shut the hell up.”
Perfetti gushed about the episode that allowed us to see another side of the teachers outside of school. “Anytime we get to leave the school, I feel like we get to show […] layers of them that we haven't seen before. They're different people when they're outside the school,” he said. “I just felt like that episode visually was so stunning. It was so nice to tell a different sort of story. Jacob really gets rung out in that episode, which as an actor I love to get to do. You know, running into your ex and having sort of an existential crisis in the way that he was I feel like is just fun.”
Creator Quinta Brunson keeps both the cast and audiences invested in Abbott’s teachers. “I'm consistently impressed and surprised by how much Quinta is able to reveal about these people, even five years on. That's what keeps it exciting for me is like watching Jacob fail over and over again and get his heart stomped on and getting to scream into a microphone. Karaoke is very cathartic in that way,” Perfetti shared. “I had a blast in that episode.”
Abbott Elementary season 5 returns January 7 on ABC.
