On the Disney 2024 Upfront Red Carpet, I caught up with Lisa Ann Walter to discuss her Abbott Elementary character and why the show has become a comfort for so many. Season 4 of the comedy will premiere Wednesday, October 9 at 9:30 PM on ABC.

Walter’s performance as Melissa Schemmenti has quickly become a fan favorite, so I asked the actress what the most rewarding part of the role is. She explained, “Well, working with the other actors in the show is incredibly rewarding. The fact that I have room to explore being a Sicilian American, it’s… people think, ‘Oh, all Italians are happy, all Italians drink wine, and they sit around, all day long, we’re going to sing on a gondola,’ and it’s like, you don’t know Sicilians. They are the most pessimistic, down, depressed people. They don’t drink. They just judge. They just sit there and judge everybody, and don’t trust. Trust no one, because that’s how they get you. Those are my people. So, yeah, it’s been fun. The writers support if I throw in a little, ‘Look at this chooch over here,’ or ‘What are you doing here, gabone?’ Like, they’re okay that I do that, so it’s fun.”

With the series about to enter its fourth season, the love from viewers has only grown even stronger and the reason for that is simple: “It’s a very comforting show, people say it all the time. The fact that we started shooting towards the tail end of the pandemic, people were still coming out of it, still sort of afraid to go out that much and we were like family to them. So I really hope that we can continue to do that and then, people will just do what I do with The Office, which is to have it on for 12 episodes in a row, you have it on in the background when you clean the house ‘cause you’ve already seen it four times, but you still want to listen to it. So that’s what I hope.”