These days, Tyler James Williams is blazing the trail as one of the stars of Abbott Elementary on ABC. The mockumentary sitcom premiered on the network in December 2021. It follows the lives of a group of dedicated teachers in a Philadelphia elementary school, who are passionate about their work despite the challenges they face on a daily basis. The show was created by Quinta Brunson, previously known for her Instagram series Girl Who Has Never Been on a Nice Date and HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show.
Williams is of course already used to being at the heart of a sitcom with school themes and set in an impoverished African-American neighborhood: Fans of the genre from the mid-to-late 2000s will remember him as the titular character in Chris Rock’s Everybody Hates Chris.
Williams was still a few weeks shy of his 13th birthday when the sitcom premiered on UPN in October 2005. The series lasted the better part of his teenage life, moving to The WB and later on The CW, where it finally concluded in May 2009. The actor can therefore be used as an example that it is possible to succeed in Hollywood having started out as a child actor.
New York-born star Williams is a key reason why Abbott Elementary has been so well received by fans and critics. Yet not everyone thought he would go on to have a meaningful career after Everybody Hates Chris.
Tyler James Williams Struggled To Cope With Being The Star Of Everybody Hates Chris
Getting the chance to star in a major sitcom at the age of 12 was a really big deal for Tyler James Williams, whose two younger brothers are also actors. What he was not prepared for was the extreme responsibility that came with being the main star of a successful show on a major TV network.
“I learned how to carry a show in a matter of two or three months,” Williams said while speaking to GQ in a recent interview. “It’s the most useful information I’ve ever gotten in my life.” To make matters worse for him, that was the same period when the internet was really starting to become an everyday man’s tool.
“The time [that] this was happening was the same time the internet was becoming more ingrained in the industry,” Williams added. “So as I’m going through the most awkward years of my life, everyone sees it… I was trying to find myself in front of everybody. And everybody had an opinion and was getting used to getting theirs out.”
A Producer On Everybody Hates Chris Questioned Tyler James Williams’ Future Career
Tyler James Williams has been acting professionally since he was 7, when he appeared in one episode of Saturday Night Live. In those early years of his career, he would go on to feature in Sesame Street, Little Bill and one episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He also enjoyed a big screen cameo in the D. J. Caruso sports drama film Two for the Money, which starred Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey and Rene Russo, among others.
It was Everybody Hates Chris, however, which turned Williams into a household name in Hollywood. The only challenge with such a defining role is it can be difficult to shake it off once the show ends, which is exactly how one of the actor’s producers on the sitcom imagined his career was going to pan out.
Williams revealed the particulars of that conversation in his interview with GQ. “I’ll never see you as anything else and you’ll probably never work again,” the producer reportedly said, leaving the actor bewildered: “I was like, ‘Holy shit, you really just looked at me and said that!”
What Else Has Tyler James Williams Done Since Everybody Hates Chris?
Tyler James Williams’ achievements are a slice of humble pie to the producer who could not see past him as Chris from Everybody Hates Chris. But even before Abbott Elementary, the actor had continued working on a regular basis. His very first gig after The CW sitcom was in an episode of The Cleaner, a drama series that aired for two seasons A&E network. He played a character called Kenji Simon.
Still in 2009, Williams featured in two episodes of Keke Palmer’s True Jackson, VP, as a character simply known as Justin. His first regular TV gig after Everybody Hates Chris was in yet another sitcom. This time, he starred as Owen Lewis in NBC’s Go On. He played the role for 19 out of the first season’s 22 episodes, after which the series was canceled.
Other notable productions that Williams has featured in since Everybody Hates Chris include The Walking Dead, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders and Whiskey Cavalier. All these years later, the limelight is something of a burden to him, but he has found a way to live with it. “I’m an introvert at heart, so it’s still difficult. I think it’s something I learned how to cope with, but never learned how to embrace,” he told GQ.