From child star to 'Abbott,' Tyler James Williams pays it forward to the kids on set

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. On the popular ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary," actor Tyler James Williams portrays a stoic, no-nonsense first-grade teacher who has a crush on a fellow teacher played by Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of the series. The show follows their characters and a team of quirky teachers as they, through trial and error, try to give these kids a quality education at Abbott Elementary.

Playing a teacher is Tyler's latest role in a long career that spans more than 25 years. He began as a child actor, most notably as a young Chris Rock in the TV show "Everybody Hates Chris." He's also starred in several other movies and shows, including "Dear White People," "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" and Season 5 of the AMC horror drama "The Walking Dead." Last year Williams won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Gregory on "Abbott Elementary," which is now in its third season.

And Tyler James Williams, welcome to FRESH AIR.

TYLER JAMES WILLIAMS: Thank you for having me.

MOSLEY: OK. I'm so excited for this conversation. I want to ask you about this character, first off, because when you won the Golden Globe award last year, which - congratulations, by...

T WILLIAMS: Thank you.

MOSLEY: ...The way - you said something like this win is for all the Gregory Eddies of the world to understand that his story is just as important as all of the other stories. What do you love most about this character?

T WILLIAMS: I love the simplicity of Gregory. I love that his story isn't rooted in some sense of trauma or some massive conflict that is very specific to his race. That's really what I meant when I said that - was that he's a guy with a job who's just trying to do a good job who happens to be Black at a Black school with Black kids. I know that I've longed for stories that were rooted in an everyday conflict. I think for a long time, I was reading a lot of things that had to be so grandiose in the things that they tackled.

MOSLEY: I read that Quinta Brunson DMed you - you all lived down the street from each other...

T WILLIAMS: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...And told you about this character.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: When she first told you about it, did it end up - was it the person that it now is? How much of it did you bring to the table once you were able to see the bones of this person?

T WILLIAMS: I think from the minute we got on the phone about it, Gregory became a collaborative effort. It's as if she had laid down a stencil of what Gregory could be. And then we started painting in the colors of him. We very quickly had a conversation about the importance of showing an active Black male struggling with and attempting to do a really good job in raising the next generation. Because those are the men I grew up with, and those are the men that she grew up with.

MOSLEY: It's really interesting, though, you say, but you had never had a Black male teacher...

T WILLIAMS: No.

MOSLEY: ...Like Gregory.

T WILLIAMS: No.

MOSLEY: That was the first time you'd ever thought about it, actually.

T WILLIAMS: That was the first time it had even crossed my mind. And I think she read off some statistic about, like, I think it's less than 2% of teachers are Black and male in the U.S. And that's where - I always look for like the purpose of a thing, right? Where's the purpose I can hook into, and that was one of them. But then there was something about, like, a kind of quieter, introverted take on him that I really loved. I can't remember how we got there. But that slowly began to, like, evolve into who he was. I think the beginning was just he was very anti-wanting to be at Abbott because he was looking for a bigger position.

MOSLEY: Right, because he started off there as a substitute teacher.

T WILLIAMS: Exactly.

MOSLEY: We learned later on that he had actually applied for the job of principal and didn't get it.

T WILLIAMS: Exactly.

MOSLEY: So, yes, it starts off where you feel like, oh, yeah, he just feels a little some kind of way about being in the school.

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: But we learn, especially this season, the depths of who he is.

T WILLIAMS: Exactly. And that's what I wanted to slowly unravel. I wanted to show a version of not just a Black man showing up in his work space differently, but showing up authentically himself, not necessarily being, I guess, flamboyantly entertaining...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...In his space - quiet in his space.

MOSLEY: I want us to play a clip of him.

T WILLIAMS: OK.

MOSLEY: So in the series, you, Quinta Brunson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lisa Anne Walter and Chris Perfetti all play dedicated teachers trying to make the most out of their limited resources. And the place where we really get to see you guys and your personality is the teacher's lounge.

T WILLIAMS: Right (laughter).

MOSLEY: It does feel like we're going inside, right?

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: So in this scene that I'm about to play from Season 1, all of the teachers are in the lounge. Also William Stanford Davis, who plays the janitor for the school, is there. And fellow teacher Jacob offers you a slice of pizza. Sheryl Lee Ralph, as Mrs. Howard, speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ABBOTT ELEMENTARY")

SHERYL LEE RALPH: (As Barbara Howard) This Pauly's pizza is delish; isn't it?

LISA ANN WALTER: (As Melissa Schemmenti) It's decent, but it's not as good as Dough Nuts. Sorry.

CHRIS PERFETTI: (As Jacob Hill) Was anybody else not enjoying the mouthfeel of Frederico's - Greg?

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) Oh, I mean, it's all going to be trash to me. I'm a Baltimore pizza guy, like I said.

PERFETTI: (As Jacob Hill) You know what? I thought that might happen. And so, as your best friend here at Abbott, I took it upon myself to drive two hours to Baltimore to get you your favorite pizza from Say Cheese.

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) That's crazy.

PERFETTI: (As Jacob Hill) I even asked the pizzaiollo to make it extra crunchy and wet. Bon appetit.

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) All right, man, I can't do this. I just don't like pizza.

WILLIAM STANFORD DAVIS: (As Mr. Johnson) What? Say that again. I don't think I heard you, son.

RALPH: (As Barbara Howard) Sweetheart, what do you mean you don't like pizza?

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) I don't understand the concept of having a bunch of ingredients just slosh around in your mouth. It's not just pizza. I've got, like, four or five things that I actually like, and I just stick to those.

PERFETTI: (As Jacob Hill) Do you like pie?

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) Fruit should not be hot.

RALPH: (As Barbara Howard) OK, OK. What about a rack of ribs - dry rub, no sauce?

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) Yeah, it's not for me. But I do like bacon.

DAVIS: (As Mr. Johnson) He's lying. He doesn't like bacon.

RALPH: (As Barbara Howard) How could you not like pizza, Gregory? How could you not like - it's pizza.

T WILLIAMS: (As Greg Eddie) See; this is why I don't ever tell anybody - OK? - 'cause everyone always freaks out and acts like it's a personal attack. It's not my fault. I was born this way.

PERFETTI: (As Jacob Hill) Don't you bring Lady Gaga into this.

MOSLEY: That's Tyler James Williams as first grade teacher Gregory Eddie in the sitcom "Abbott Elementary." What was your school experience like? - because you were a child actor, I mean, you - since you were 4, right? Yeah, so what was school like for you?

T WILLIAMS: So I went to a traditional brick and mortar school up until about sixth grade. Around that time, I was beginning to work a bit more. And, you know, when you're in a traditional school, you only get so many absences. And when you're actively working, at some point, that becomes an issue. They knew I was an actor. They knew I would have to leave for auditions and all of that. But as work was beginning to ramp up, they were like, hey, we have to answer for this at the school district. So my mother, at that point, moved me into this kind of home schooling program where I could have tutors on set that could pretty much pick up on the program and teach me what I needed to know. So it could be a bit more seamless.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Do you remember that timeframe, when it was like, oh, yeah, I'm working more than I'm in school, or I'm out of school a lot?

T WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah, no, I remember it. I was never one who really liked school. I liked learning. I didn't like the environment of learning with other people. That's my issue.

MOSLEY: Like what? Specifically like - yeah.

T WILLIAMS: I didn't like getting up in the morning and going to sit in a room full of, like, 15 to 20 other kids who, like, I wasn't crazy about.

MOSLEY: You didn't have - did you have close friends in school?

T WILLIAMS: Not really. No. There was, like, nobody from that, like, I guess, what would be zero to sixth grade that I really felt connected to because I was really passionate about my job. That was the thing that I really loved. Most of my friends were in that space. We were all deep-feeling, creative.

T WILLIAMS: We looked closely into things that other kids just wouldn't really care about.

MOSLEY: So were your other friends actors and...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah. OK.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. So that was the thing. There was like - there's a bunch of them now who, like, We all grew up together and are now very successful, like Leon Thomas III. We grew up together in New York, and I was reading for stuff against Michael B. Jordan at the time when he was on the east coast. And it's great to see everybody around now. But that's where I felt more at home.

MOSLEY: Yeah. When you're on set at "Abbott Elementary," there's a whole cast of kids that have also been over the last few seasons. They're just in the classroom...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Growing up, right?

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Do you see yourself in them at all? 'Cause they also, you know, they're child actors, too. Do you ever relate to them in that way?

T WILLIAMS: One hundred percent. There's stuff that, like, I can see them processing. I remember that look on my face where they'll be asking about - one asked me the other day, what does swinging a lens mean. And in TV, swinging a lens means you're going tighter with the camera lens. So you had this wide shot and you're going into this kind of tighter shot, and they hear that every day, and they're like, what does that mean? And then I had to explain that to them. But then you also see those who - it's setting a spark off. And I can tell that there are some who are going to try to pursue this for, I guess, a good amount of their lives.

So I just want to make sure that they feel as comfortable, welcomed and leave with as much information as possible on this potential world that they could go into and that they're having fun. If they're not having fun, there's no reason for us to be doing this. As adults, we're having fun. We should be. And that's what, you know, hopefully attracts them to it.

MOSLEY: Were there adult actors that you were working with when you were a kid who kind of gave that to you, too?

T WILLIAMS: In a way, right? I think I grew up in a time where I think the industry as a whole didn't necessarily know what to do with kids. They just really weren't sure. It was like this child was in this adult workspace. We need them for this story, but we're not really sure how to accommodate this room to them. So what I ended up having a lot more was people who were really good at helping me get good at what I was doing. Tichina Arnold was really good at...

MOSLEY: Your mom - who...

T WILLIAMS: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...Played your mom on "Everybody Hates Chris."

T WILLIAMS: She was really good at making sure I got good at this comedy thing 'cause she saw, like, no, I want to be good at this. I want to do this for the rest of my life. And she just as takes and scenes would go by, would actively try to break me in things so that I could get, like, the muscle strong enough to be able to...

MOSLEY: Oh, what kinds of things would she do?

T WILLIAMS: Whenever it was on my coverage - right? - and she's behind the camera, what you ended up seeing as a take is not what she was doing behind that camera. She would amp it up and she would turn the thing up a bit and it - now when I look back on it, it was really just a beautiful training ground that she was laying out for me. I saw her recently and was able to tell her that. I'm just like, thank you for getting me ready to kind of hang with the best in comedy because I truly believe she is one of the best to ever do it.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Tyler James Williams, one of the stars of "Abbott Elementary," which is now in its third season. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INTRO")

THE PREZIDENT CHRIS WALKER: Make it funky now.

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today we are talking to actor Tyler James Williams. He plays Gregory Eddie in the ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary." And in the show, his character is a stoic, no-nonsense first-grade teacher who has a crush on fellow teacher Janine, played by Quinta Brunson, who is the creator and star of the series. Williams' career began as a child actor. For four seasons, he played the role of a young Chris Rock in the semi-autobiographical TV show, "Everybody Hates Chris." Williams also starred in movies like "Dear White People" and "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" and shows like Season 5 of the AMC horror drama "The Walking Dead." Last year Williams won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Gregory on "Abbott Elementary," which is now in its third season.

"Everybody Hates Chris" ran for four seasons.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: How old - you were from what age range to what?

T WILLIAMS: Twelve to 16.

MOSLEY: OK, 12 to 16 years old. And you were playing a young Chris Rock, semi-biographical, set in a different time frame - the '80s. But...

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: ...A lot of your acting is through physical - through your face...

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: ...Because a lot of the show is narration, so...

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: ...You don't have many lines. One of the things you are known for is your face acting.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Even to this day on "Abbott Elementary," it's...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Like, oh, you can give the side eye like no other.

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: I'm just wondering how much was that perfected during "Everybody Hates Chris" 'cause so much of your face is a part of emoting what is happening in the scene.

T WILLIAMS: I think it laid the groundwork, for sure. I think the crux of that show - a lot of people don't fundamentally understand it, I've noticed over time.

MOSLEY: The show?

T WILLIAMS: The show itself. It's not that Chris was hated on specifically. It's that he felt like the world around him was insane. And that's how he internalized it. So, for me, that was one of the only ways to really convey all of the little things that were happening in that show cause I could feel them. Like, there's a lot of micro kind of aggressions that we explore with, like, the teacher at one time. And in 27 pages, as you do with a half-hour comedy, there's just not enough lines to respond. You can't say what or oh, my God but for so many times. And that's when I learned that I should have - my character should have an opinion not just on his own lines, but on everybody else's. And it's my job as a performer to show what his opinion is on those things. So it definitely laid the groundwork for how I was going to work for the rest of my life. Yeah.

MOSLEY: It also was such a - how would you describe that time period for yourself? It was a time of learning, but you also said you walked away with some trauma...

T WILLIAMS: Oh.

MOSLEY: ...From that time period.

T WILLIAMS: That's - one of the things that is very unique to me about that show is so many people have such great, overwhelmingly warm feelings about it from their childhood. And I'm, like, one of a few people who don't, right? It was a very difficult time for me. I'm one of those people who believes that fame is inherently traumatic. You are one thing one day. And the next day, you're something completely different. One day, I was just a kid in New York, who was like, walking down the streets of Manhattan, auditioning and all of that. And the next day I was on - my face was on every bus in the city. So I think I really struggled with that attention.

I think attention that most people seek, I wasn't necessarily doing this for that. I was doing this because I love to do it. Even to this day, I still find it very bizarre when people hyper-obsess on you. And I think I was going through puberty and was awkward and wasn't really sure who I was or who I wanted to be yet. And I think that's an awkward time for anybody. But it's really difficult when it's put on a screen...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...And then immortalized. You know what I mean? A lot of the people I grew up with who were also child actors may not have had a show that was as big of a hit as "Everybody Hates Chris" became. So that period of time for them wasn't necessarily immortalized. And there's a certain aspect of, I guess, infantilizing that happens, where people try to keep you in that place at the same time.

MOSLEY: There was also something - was it a producer or someone said to you when you guys were wrapping that show...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...That...

T WILLIAMS: I'd probably never work again.

MOSLEY: This producer said to you, no one will ever be able to probably see you outside of this character...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...As a young Chris Rock.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. So I'm doing a good job. Why am I being punished for doing a good job? It was very difficult for me to grapple with. And it kind of contextualized the whole - my 20s, essentially.

MOSLEY: What propelled you to keep going in this industry? So you're 16 when you - when it wraps?

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. I'm - wrap, yeah.

MOSLEY: You continued to act. Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: And I mean - what I'm about to say, I mean this not to be dramatic, but very seriously. There was no other option. Having been able to live very early parts of my life doing what I loved on set consistently day by day, I had tasted that. There was no going back. It was either this or bust. So I was quite literally fighting for not just my career, but my life over the course of my 20s. That's what drove me because I couldn't see myself doing really anything else. This was it. So if it wasn't this, it wasn't going to be anything.

MOSLEY: How did you become a child actor? 'Cause 4 years old is really young.

T WILLIAMS: It is. This is something I've never heard really resonate with anybody else, and I guess that's just unique to me. I came out of the womb ready to go (laughter).

MOSLEY: Really? What story did your mama tell you about you being born?

T WILLIAMS: Well, that's - I remember these moments..

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...Is the thing. Like, that's the, like - you - I see all these, like, baby pictures of me, and I look very -I'm a very serious child.

MOSLEY: Right. Like, you've had the same face - right.

T WILLIAMS: Like, there's a lot on my mind. Feel like I'm making a plan for something. And I remember sitting on the floor in my parents' living room. I can tell you the way the floor felt. I can tell you that the couch was green and how the fabric felt. I remember all of it clearly.

And I was watching "Men In Black," and it was the chase sequence at the beginning. And something in me clicked and it was like, I want to do that. And I brought it up to my parents, and they had been on the music side of the industry, right? And anyone who's been on the music side in the industry will tell you that they're not hype about...

MOSLEY: About acting. Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...That part of the industry, or just the industry in general for their children. So they initially didn't really take me seriously because I was 4.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: You know what I mean? Like - and I give them a lot of credit on that, that eventually they did. Eventually, I think a mother just knows when the child talks about something differently. My mother started taking me to just, like, these auditions, 'cause I was in New York. So the theater community there is really robust.

MOSLEY: Right, 'cause you were raised in Yonkers. Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: In Yonkers, so it's not difficult to fall into a very casual version of the industry, right? You can do, like, off-Broadway plays, stuff that just, like, allows you to have fun like it would be going to soccer. You know what I mean, you drop your kids off to soccer, doesn't mean that they're going to play professionally. Anyway, yeah, I was bit.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: I was bit.

MOSLEY: Your mom even wrote a book about this, on...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...How to have a rich and famous child.

T WILLIAMS: Which I think when people see it initially, they think it's a blueprint when in actuality, it's a cautionary tale to all the things that - the way I frame it is it's the unknown unknowns. It's the things that you can't know that you don't know and how to navigate those things that we just found over time because you want - I think every parent wants their kid to be happy and do what they love. It just so happens that with this, it can come with a very difficult terrain.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Tyler James Williams, one of the stars of the sitcom "Abbott Elementary" on ABC. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DE LA SOUL SONG, "CHANGE IN SPEAK")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is Tyler James Williams, one of the stars of "Abbott Elementary." In the show, which is now in its third season, Tyler plays Gregory Eddie, a no-nonsense first grade teacher who has a crush on fellow teacher Janine, played by Quinta Brunson, who is the creator and star of the series.

Williams' career began as a child actor. For four seasons, he played the role of a young Chris Rock in the semi-autobiographical TV show "Everybody Hates Chris." Williams also starred in movies like "Dear White People" and "The United States Vs. Billie Holiday" and shows like Season 5 of the AMC horror drama "The Walking Dead." And last year, Williams won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Gregory on "Abbott Elementary.".

I want to play a clip. It's one of your first gigs.

T WILLIAMS: Is it? Uh-oh (ph).

MOSLEY: "Sesame Street."

T WILLIAMS: Oh, wow.

MOSLEY: And the year is 2000. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SESAME STREET")

T WILLIAMS: In my family, we celebrate Kwanzaa.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

T WILLIAMS: Every night, we light a candle on the kinara. There's a candle holder with a candle for each of the seven nights of Kwanzaa.

ANGELA WILLIAMS: Are you ready to light the kinara?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

T WILLIAMS: And every night, we talk about walk out the seven principles of Kwanzaa. They're ideas for how to live a good life.

MOSLEY: That was our guest, Tyler James Williams, with your brother...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: In one of your first major acting roles, celebrating Kwanzaa with your family on "Sesame Street."

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And in this clip - I remember this clip. That's what's so crazy about it.

T WILLIAMS: Do you?

MOSLEY: Yes. But in this clip, you are all in African garb. There's food, and there's games, and your brother is showing us how you all celebrate. And you're dancing right in the middle. Do you remember this?

T WILLIAMS: A hundred percent I remember that day.

MOSLEY: What do you remember about filming?

T WILLIAMS: I remember how it came about, too. So I had been on "Sesame Street" at that time for about maybe six years. They came to my mom saying they wanted to do a Kwanzaa special. And having been there for so long and had built such great relationships over there, they were like, we would love it if it could be your family. So in that clip is my entire extended family...

MOSLEY: All of those folks are your real family, yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...My grandfather, my cousins, my aunts. And what's really beautiful to me about that is it's immortalized. I love - we can't watch any of it, right? My brothers and I, we have this big turnoff from watching anything that we were ever in literally ever (laughter).

MOSLEY: Oh, so all of you are that way?

T WILLIAMS: We're all that way.

MOSLEY: Why? What is it about seeing it?

T WILLIAMS: I don't - one, it's bombarding, right? It's difficult because, like, even in my YouTube algorithm or, like, on social media, I'll see, like, a gif or something of me. And I'm like, ah. It's just, you don't expect to see yourself.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: And I think it's not like watching home movies. It's watching you perform. It's very uncanny. Like, it's a weird feeling I can't really describe.

MOSLEY: And then also seeing your family perform, too, in this particular clip.

T WILLIAMS: And that's the thing.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: Like, I see - I hear my mom and I hear her voice. But I also hear her being aware that she's on camera voice, because everyone has that, like they code switch on the phone. I'm just really happy that I come from some really, really, really talented Black people who never quite got their due. And in this one clip, I can at least show all of them in one room. And that's what I really love about that.

MOSLEY: You mentioned your parents were singers. They had day jobs. Like, your dad was an officer, a police officer...

T WILLIAMS: Yeah, right.

MOSLEY: ...And your mom, a counselor.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yeah. But they were not just singers, they were singers, right?

T WILLIAMS: No, yeah, flat-footed singers, acapella, like...

MOSLEY: Who did they sing - they were background singers for a lot of big names.

T WILLIAMS: They were background singers, yeah - Luther Vandross, Nona Hendryx. I think it was Nona who had said my aunt was - my mom, my aunt and my dad were in a singing group together that did background. And Nona, I believe, was the one who said to my aunt, you're like a Porsche going the speed limit back here.

MOSLEY: Wow.

T WILLIAMS: I come from people who can sing. Our family reunions were acapella groups' dreams.

MOSLEY: Right.

T WILLIAMS: But the music industry is very hard.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: It's very difficult.

MOSLEY: What were some of the things that your mother and father did that you, like, look back and you say, I mean, those were the things that kept us out of it? The stuff she writes about, I guess, in the book, too.

T WILLIAMS: They did a really good job of protecting us. One of the things I think I needed as an adult in the industry, and every adult in the industry needs, is to know the power of no and get really comfortable with saying it. My father, almost antagonistically, would go out of his way to say no as many times as he could to as many people here as possible. He would look them in the face, people who were, you know, executives and, like, producers, you know, because he wanted to let us know that at any point in time, we could walk away from this and he would be fine with it. He wouldn't care. We could go back to whatever life it was that we had.

And he removed that fear of feeling like you have to say yes to everything. And now as an adult who has to go through, you know, contract negotiations and multiple offers coming in and out and pressure from this side and that side, my ability to say no is stronger than most of my age. But I think that was the biggest thing that they did was they made it very clear to us, we can walk, because they had already walked away from the industry themselves. That was the practice that we needed that we just weren't going to be able to have as kids. They were good with walking. And to this day, I am very OK with walking away from anything.

MOSLEY: This makes me think about what you said at the start of our conversation when I was asking you what made you really love this character, Gregory. Were you given scripts for things that you turned down because you're just like, I can't be this or this is a bad deal?

T WILLIAMS: Everything after "Everybody Hates Chris" I said no to, everything I got offered pretty much. It was all either reinforcing this idea that I was this one character or just objectively bad.

MOSLEY: So something you've been very vocal about is your Crohn's disease, which is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

MOSLEY: When did you understand that you were sick?

T WILLIAMS: I had been living sick since I was about 19. I became aware how sick I was when I was hospitalized at 23. And I had a surgeon look at me in my eyes and tell me, you need emergency surgery. And I was like, OK. Cool. Yeah. And he was like, no, no, no, no, like, we need to do this right now or your insides may explode, and you may die.

MOSLEY: Let's stop right there, because, you know, it's always surprising when a doctor, when a medical professional is...

T WILLIAMS: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...Like, this is so bad. We got to go right in. Did you - how would you describe the level of agony and pain that you were in? Did you even - you didn't even realize it?

T WILLIAMS: Oh, it was nonstop. It was nonstop. It was like - it became my normal. And this is when, you know, when we talk about "Everybody Hates Chris" - this is the part that most people don't know. That show almost killed me. We had to figure out what the direct connection was 'cause the doctors - I was diagnosed by a wonderful Black GI named Sophie Balzora in New York. And we've developed a relationship after the fact where we keep in touch with each other, we check in with each other. I do, you know, speaking events and things for her. And I asked her not that long ago, I was like, how bad was I? And she was like, now that we're outside of it, you're one of the worst cases I've ever seen.

MOSLEY: Wow.

T WILLIAMS: It didn't make sense why it was so bad. And we realized that one of the triggers was the stress. So the stress that I was experiencing from fighting for my career, from carrying a show at 12, was slowly scarring the insides of my intestines as it would inflame because my body didn't know what to do with the stress. I was so young. It just saw that stress as, like, the flu, and it would try to attack a certain part of my body to remove it.

MOSLEY: Were you just living day to day just, like, doing your own remedies to do? Like, this works for me. This doesn't work for me. I don't eat this. I don't eat this. Like, how were you managing from day to day?

T WILLIAMS: I was throwing up, like, three times a day. Trying not to eat when I knew I had to work because I know - I knew eating could possibly mess something up, and I didn't know what it was. At some point after I was diagnosed, they were like, hey, you need to have surgery. And then I remember my response was, I'm in the middle of production. I can't. And they were like, that's - OK, that's not really an option. So there was a period of, like, almost a year to a year and a half, I was living on pain killers. Like, I was living off of Percocets and Hydrocodones. I was...

MOSLEY: 'Cause the doctors didn't - hadn't diagnosed you yet, so you were just getting pain.

T WILLIAMS: There was just pain.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: And I would go to the hospital and they'd be like, I don't know what's wrong with you because it doesn't really show up on an X-ray. But even after I was diagnosed, I was - it was the middle of shooting - I was shooting "Detroit" for Kathryn Bigelow...

MOSLEY: Oh, the movie, "Detroit," yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...While also shooting "Criminal Minds."

MOSLEY: Oh, two very heavy...

T WILLIAMS: So I was working...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...Seven days a week.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: I was shooting "Criminal Minds" in LA and then flying to Boston and Detroit to shoot "Detroit" back-and-forth. And I was like, there's no way I can stop right now. So I just kind of lived off of these very strong, very strong painkillers.

MOSLEY: At a certain point, your doctor then said to you, emergency surgery.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: They removed six inches of your lower intestine.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And that's not all. You went into septic shock.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that happened. So when they removed six inches of my intestines, typically, what they will do is they will give somebody who had that kind of a surgery an ostomy bag for it to heal and then reconnect everything later.

MOSLEY: Right.

T WILLIAMS: Again, I'm an actor. I'm like, I don't have that kind of time. And two, I can't be walking around...

MOSLEY: Walking around like this.

T WILLIAMS: ...With this. So my surgeon, he said, I'm going to try. I'm going to try not to, and we'll see what happens. He reconnected everything. I lasted maybe four or five days before it perforated and opened back up. And they took me back into emergency surgery, and I came out with an ostomy that I had for about six weeks. And that's when everything broke. That's when, like, I broke completely. I needed that. I needed it to sit me down.

MOSLEY: It sat you down.

T WILLIAMS: It sat me down. I think that was the first time I had - and it was only six weeks. It felt like years.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: But it was only six weeks, and I needed to sit down, and I needed to stop because you can't work or live in the place of hyper-stress like that where you feel like you're fighting for your life. For me, it was either I have a long career or my life end shortly. And that was the stakes for me. But you can't exist like that.

MOSLEY: How are you now?

T WILLIAMS: I'm good.

MOSLEY: How is your health now?

T WILLIAMS: That's the thing that's so - I haven't had a incident where I had to go to the hospital in years, at this point. I'm on medication, but I think also I changed the way I lived. It was - a lot of it was diet for me. There were certain things, like, I just couldn't have anymore. I haven't had a drink of alcohol since I was 23. I haven't had a cup of coffee since I was 23. These are all things that can, like, set it off.

MOSLEY: Are these things you miss?

T WILLIAMS: No, because they always came with pain.

MOSLEY: Right, right. It's like...

T WILLIAMS: All of my associations...

MOSLEY: You weren't having a good time...

T WILLIAMS: ...Have changed.

MOSLEY: ...When you were drinking. Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: No. Like, I was in the club with everybody like, Why does this hurt? So, no, I don't miss them because I don't miss the pain that comes along with them. But a lot of it was mental. A lot of it - I had to change the way I lived, the way I worked, the way - I had to go into therapy and start processing the things that I had gone through and experienced. I couldn't just muscle them through. I had to become a healthier person in my mind so that it wouldn't affect my body as much.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: But thankfully...

MOSLEY: You're here.

T WILLIAMS: It works.

MOSLEY: It works.

T WILLIAMS: Therapy works.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Right.

T WILLIAMS: Doctors know what they're talking about, typically. And when they say you need to stop and slow down, you should probably listen to that.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Tyler James Williams, one of the stars of "Abbott Elementary," which is now in its third season. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALLEN TOUSSAINT'S "EGYPTIAN FANTASY")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today we are talking to actor Tyler James Williams. He plays Gregory Eddie in the ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary." Williams' career began as a child actor. For four seasons, he played the role of a young Chris Rock in the semi-autobiographical TV show "Everybody Hates Chris."

I want to go back to talking a little bit about "Abbott Elementary." So this season is an important season in the story arc of you. And as we've been talking about, like, it's a slow evolving of who you are and all the characters. We're learning more and more about everyone. But in Season 2 last year, your character, Gregory, finally kissed Janine, Quinta's character. And we just knew that this was the season that it was going to be on, but it wasn't. Quinta has said that she didn't want the show to fall into the typical tropes around workplace romance. How do you think that decision has allowed maybe Gregory, in many ways, to grow and develop as a character even more? - 'cause now it's taking us into another direction.

T WILLIAMS: What I love most about Quinta's choice to not immediately follow the kiss with a relationship is, at that point in the story, we don't see Janine and Gregory as full people. Particularly, I felt that way with Gregory. He felt like a very polished, perfect man. And he's not. And I think we would be doing a disservice to not only him but men like him by not showing these little cracks and flaws that they have.

And every now and then, somebody will send me - 'cause I try to stay offline as much as possible - send me how people are reacting to it. And I love how off-put people were by it because it shows he doesn't have to be perfect. This is part of who he is, the good and the bad. You can still really ship the two of them knowing that, yeah, he has a jealous streak sometimes, and it can unravel him a bit. That doesn't make him any less capable or deserving of love.

MOSLEY: You mentioned - you just slid in there saying, like, I'm not online, or I try not to be on.

T WILLIAMS: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Like, for real?

T WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MOSLEY: That's pretty unusual for someone your age.

T WILLIAMS: Oh, I think one of the worst decisions we ever made (laughter) was establishing that actors are supposed to be very active on the internet. I experienced it before social media. That's what I think a lot of people forget.

MOSLEY: The hyper-focus on you.

T WILLIAMS: Yes.

MOSLEY: Right.

T WILLIAMS: I know what it felt like, and I know what it feels like. I don't want any more of that. It's really hard to explain. It's another uncanny feeling where you can feel people hyper-focusing on you. It feels so weird and not for the work, for just you.

MOSLEY: Did you ever try it? Like, you ever try - like, you were on for a minute, like...

T WILLIAMS: I tried...

MOSLEY: ...Instagram and Facebook?

T WILLIAMS: ...'Cause everyone said that I had to.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: And I was like - it was "Dear White People" that actually brought me on Instagram. So when I did "Dear White People," I didn't have anything, really. Then Lena Waithe and Justin Simien were like, hey. You're kind of one of the more recognizable faces of this indie movie that, like, we want people to see.

MOSLEY: Yeah. Use your cache.

T WILLIAMS: Can you please...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

T WILLIAMS: ...Use that? And I was like, fine. I should have deleted it right after, though. I should have immediately gotten rid of it because, yeah, it's just not something that feels comfortable for me. I need to exist as normally as possible. I'm not somebody who develops fans for claps. I don't need to hear that. I don't need the attention or the recognition necessarily. I was going to do the work I was going to do regardless. If you happen to like it, I love that. But that's not why I'm doing it. And I also don't think we should micromanage the conversation about the art. I shouldn't be a part of this. I shouldn't see what y'all are saying. I shouldn't - the best part of it is when, you know, somebody saw something and a bunch of men got, like, grouped together at the barber shop, and they're talking about it. Now you can see it online. I don't want to hear that conversation.

MOSLEY: I was also wondering 'cause I think someone else said on the show to me, if you believe the positive things, then you have to believe the negative things and the vice versa. And so if you just think of it, like, none of it is real...

T WILLIAMS: Right.

MOSLEY: ...It helps you to just block it all out.

T WILLIAMS: The trap that most people fall into - and I've seen it happen over and over and over and over and over again - is they start listening when it's positive. But eventually it will always turn. You can't give validity to it at all, but it feels good when it's positive. So you want to. That's why I became just kind of one of those people who just - you have to block it all out. You have to figure out how do you feel about you. And I think that's one of the things that has had our industry in a stranglehold - is this idea of what the audience is going to think before you make the art. But do you like it? If you like it, then do it, and put it out. They might not. They may shoot it down before they even see it. That's fine. That's not why you made it. I've learned to turn off the noise, good and bad.

MOSLEY: Tyler James Williams, this has been such a pleasure talking to you.

T WILLIAMS: You as well. Thank you.

MOSLEY: Tyler James Williams stars in the ABC sitcom "Abbott Elementary," which is now in its third season. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews the Japanese drama film "Evil Does Not Exist." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ROBBEN FORD AND BILL EVANS' "PIXIES")

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our film critic Justin Chang named the Oscar-winning Japanese drama "Drive My Car" the best movie of 2021. Now the film's writer and director, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, is back with "Evil Does Not Exist," a new drama set in a rural small town. Here's Justin's review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: What do you do after you've directed a talky, three-hour Japanese drama that became a critic's darling and major art house hit and received four Oscar nominations, winning one for best international feature. If you're Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the gifted 45-year old-filmmaker behind "Drive My Car," you step back and go for a long walk in the woods in search of fresh air and new ideas.

The result is a mesmerizing new movie, "Evil Does Not Exist," that leaves behind the mostly urban settings of Hamaguchi's earlier films like "Happy Hour" and "Asako I And II." It takes place in a rural village within driving distance of Tokyo, that's home to a close-knit community of about 6,000 people. The first two characters we meet are a young girl named Hana, and her single dad, Takumi, a woodcutter who knows the surrounding forest better than most.

The movie sets a gently pastoral rhythm, following father and daughter as they walk through the woods, identifying trees and other plants and stumbling on the occasional dead deer. Takumi, wonderfully played by Hitoshi Omika, knows that their presence here is disruptive. But he and his fellow residents do strive to be good, responsible stewards of the land. And so they're incensed when they learn that a company is planning to build a glamping resort in the area with potentially disastrous environmental consequences.

"Evil Does Not Exist" begins as a kind of ecological parable, pitting townsfolk against corporate developers. The centerpiece is a brilliantly written and acted sequence in which the company reps meet with the locals, promising that the campsite will bring tourists and boost their economy. But the locals aren't fools, and one by one, they raise issues, from the risk of wildfires from barbecue pits to the septic tank that will pollute the town's water supply. The sequence has some of the texture of a Frederick Wiseman documentary, and it's similarly skilled at turning a slide show presentation in a community center into the stuff of engrossing drama.

There's a turning point in the story when one of the company reps, Takahashi, played by the actor Ryuji Kosaka, seems to fall under the spell of this wooded region and even fantasizes about moving here. For a while, it looks like the movie might be the story of a city mouse turning country mouse. But nothing about "Evil Does Not Exist" turns out to be predictable.

As he's done before, Hamaguchi gives us characters who are too complicated and richly drawn to be reduced to any one type. Yet that doesn't explain how hauntingly different this movie feels from his other work. It's more sparsely written and more unsettling in tone. The musical score, composed by Eiko Ishibashi, is both lush and ominous, and it often cuts off abruptly to disorienting effect. The outdoor scenery is shot with a crystalline beauty. But the longer you watch, the more sinister the imagery becomes. At times, Hamaguchi positions the camera at ground level looking up, as if to show us the perspective of the Earth itself. In these moments, the human characters suddenly look strangely alien, like the interlopers they are.

I've seen "Evil Does Not Exist" a few times now, and each time it's held me rapt only to leave me feeling profoundly unnerved. Much of that has to do with the ending, which is confounding in ways that have already generated a lot of debate. I'm still wrestling with the ending myself, and what it says about the human compulsion to dominate one's environment. I'm also still getting a handle on the title. It's as if Hamaguchi is trying to get us to look at the natural world, human beings included, beyond the comforting framework of good versus evil. Nowhere is this more evident than in the character of Takumi, whom Omika plays with an inscrutability that both frightens you and draws you in. He may be a loving father and caretaker of the land, but Takahashi misreads him at his own peril. It's the two lead actors' performances that keep you watching through the shattering final moments. Whether or not evil exists, I'm glad a movie this mysterious - and powerful - does.

MOSLEY: Justin Chang is a film critic at the New Yorker and winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He reviewed the Japanese drama film "Evil Does Not Exist." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR - the militias of the Middle East, their roles in the war between Israel and Hamas and the power they exert in their home countries. Our guest will be Gregg Carlstrom, who covers the Middle East for The Economist. I hope you can join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOMINIC MILLER'S "URBAN WALTZ")

MOSLEY: Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOMINIC MILLER'S "URBAN WALTZ")

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