Politics
How Chris Perfetti of ‘Abbott Elementary’ Spends His Sundays
On his weeks off from shooting the ABC sitcom, the actor unwinds by whipping up “the biggest salad ever” and seeking out a Sunday-night show.
For the actor Chris Perfetti, who lives in a fifth-floor walk-up in Brooklyn Heights, every day is leg day.
“It’s worth it for the view,” said Mr. Perfetti, 35, who portrays the sixth-grade teacher Jacob Hill on “Abbott Elementary,” Quinta Brunson’s public school mockumentary set in Philadelphia. The fourth season premiered this month.
Mr. Perfetti, a longtime New York theater actor who broke out on the show in 2021, still considers Brooklyn home, though he is also in Los Angeles six months of the year shooting “Abbott.” (He recently bought a 100-year-old cottage in the woods in Los Angeles’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood, though he said he has no plans to give up his Brooklyn one-bedroom, where he lives on the building’s top floor.)
“I definitely miss New York when I’m in L.A. more than I miss L.A. when I’m in New York,” said Mr. Perfetti, who was born in Rochester, N.Y.
He studied drama at the State University of New York at Purchase in Westchester County and spent his weekends taking Metro-North trains into Manhattan to see shows.
“I pretty much jet back here as soon as they call cut on ‘Abbott,’” he said.
LATE START I wake up before noon, but not by much. “Abbott” requires me to wake up in the wee, wee dark hours of the morning — I’m usually up at 4:30 or 5:30 a.m. to be on set. That requires an alarm every day, so on the days when I’m not shooting, I let my body get as much sleep as I can.
