SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from Wednesday night’s episode of Abbott Elementary.
If there’s been one thing on Dominic Clark’s (Luke Tennie) agenda since he arrived at Abbott Elementary, it’s please his colleagues.
“I kind of think of him like a puppy,” Tennie tells Deadline, joking that he sort of sought guidance on his physical comedy style from Tom Holland as Spider-Man. “If you watch his interview, what he’s talking about with Spider-Man, he’s like, ‘Yeah, when I’m wearing a mask, I kind of just let my head pull the rest of me wherever I go.’”
That is, until Wednesday night’s episode, when the Dominic finds his voice and decides to stand up for himself after kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) makes an insensitive comment about children with ADHD, referring to medication for the disorder as a “shortcut.” The episode centers around Dominic’s journey to eventually opening up to Barbara about how his comment made her feel.
He’s visibly relieved when Barbara accepts the critique and apologizes for the insensitive remark. It’s exactly the kind of response the young teacher was hoping for, Tennie says, as well as a way to lead by example with someone who is “already ready to learn from her.”
“At that point, she’s not apologizing to a student, she’s apologizing to a peer. He’s new, but she understands that ‘Alright, if we’re going to be working together…I got to be open to other people’s sensitivities,” he adds. “I think, especially this season, you could really see Barbara’s commitment to her own growth.”
In the same way that Mrs. Howard is proving to be a positive mentor for a young educator like Dominic, Ralph, who won an Emmy for her performance on Abbott, has also been somewhat of a mentor to 31-year-old Tennie this season. After all, she exemplifies the best of the comedy series, adeptly infusing both heart and hilarity into each of her moments on camera.
“I asked her about the difference between drama and comedy in terms of how she plays. She was like, ‘It’s not really about that. It’s not really about playing it differently. It’s about playing each one with sincerity and truth and honesty.’ I was so compelled by that response, because I always feel like the greatest actors tend to agree on that,” he said. “So, when I finally got the opportunity to work across from her in a one-on-one [environment], I got to see how that approach manifested. What’s so cool about that commitment to sincerity and truth is nothing feels hokey, so there is an opportunity there for her to just be funny, because that’s one of the funniest characters on that show, but she played that apology with such conviction.”
When it came to this episode, Tennie says he wanted to strike a similar balance, given the responsibility he felt to properly advocate for people who have ADHD.
“I think that just provides this great opportunity, not just for the students, but for other teachers who are watching, to just feel represented,” he said.
Tennie is a recurring guest star for Season 5, so he doesn’t appear in every episode. When he does return, he teases that it’ll be memorable.
“Well, I think it is the funniest episode of Abbott that I’m in,” he reveals. “I think they’re just going to be doubled over laughing. It is hilarious.”
New episodes of Abbott Elementary air Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. PT on ABC.