“Abbott Elementary” star Janelle James reveals what Ava said during that bleep-filled scene

Key Points

• Abbott Elementary star Janelle James looks back on Principal Ava getting fired in season 4.

• The Emmy nominee reveals what those bleeps were in a scene talking about the school district’s IT rep, and explains why she didn’t like being mean on their date.

• James teases this summer’s Abbott crossover episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Janelle James never had dreams of starring on a network sitcom.

“I never had aspirations to be an actor,” the Abbott Elementary Emmy nominee admits on the Awardist podcast. “I always thought I would be a huge touring [act] … I wanted to be Chris Rock. I wanted to be Richard Pryor. I want to be Amy Schumer. I want to make $30 million a year touring and hang out with my friends and be a degenerate comedian like every comedian dreams,” she says, laughing.

Now, the St. Thomas-born, New York-raised comedian finds herself enjoying arguably her best season yet of the Quinta Brunson-created ABC comedy, where she plays the sarcastic, sassy, and sensational principal Ava Coleman. In the recently wrapped fourth season, the school district fired Ava after discovering she was accepting bribes from the owner of the new golf course near the school, in exchange for staying out of their business.

Over the course of a few episodes, the teachers — led by Brunson’s Janine — plot how to get Ava reinstated as principal, including throwing themselves under the bus, which only results in their suspension for a week. While they’re ultimately successful in the finale, thanks to a rally by students, teachers, and community members, it’s a scene between Ava and Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Barbara Howard, as Ava’s leaving school after being fired, that had audiences — even James — shedding a tear or three.

“That moment in particular for me was a Truman Show type of thing … Especially to have someone like Sheryl Lee Ralph speaking to me,” she explains, thinking back to the pilot when she was an unknown to the cast. “I asked Sheryl, she had no idea who I was.”

“Then,” she continues, “to have this moment with her where she’s like, ‘Hey, I didn’t know about you at first, but you’ve improved,’ I took it in that way not only for Ava the character, but for Janelle the actor. So it meant a lot to me.”

In addition to her firing, she developed a crush on the school district’s IT rep, O’Shon (Matthew Law), and eventually went on a date that he ended early because of how rude she was being — something Ava wasn’t even aware of.

“It hurt me and exhausted me to be that mean,” she says. “One of the amazing things about this show is, we’re doing so much in such a short amount of time — it’s a 22-minute show. I had to be that mean, so that the turn meant something more. Actually, it was Matthew who talked me down, because I was like, ‘God, what a bitch.’ He’s like, ‘It’s okay.'”

There have been plenty of laughs where Ava is concerned — from her insults to snark. And then, there was the episode, prior to going on a date with O’Shon, where she spewed a profanity-filled quip to office assistant Dia (Pam Trotter) about what she’d like to do to him.

What, exactly, did she say?

“Are you sure? I don’t think this is that kind of show,” James says, laughing. “In the script, it just says ‘bleep.’ But I was saying actual things, and I was trying to scandalize everybody on the set, and I think I succeeded. Those reactions for Pam were real because I was saying some wild s—… The final line is ‘It’s okay because I’ll choke you too.'”

For fans who can’t wait until fall for season 5 of Abbott, we’ll get a small dose of the characters again this summer, when they appear on FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the second part of the two show’s crossover, where James says Ava is “a ringmaster” and “a narrator for all the high jinks.”

“I think everybody expects Ava to go over there and act the fool, but it’s really the [Abbott] characters that are more low-key, that are turning it up,” she teases. “It’s more surprising than you would think.”

Check out more from EW’s The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year’s best in TV, movies, and more.

Fool or not, James has emerged from the series as a fan favorite, and her legions of followers were quick to say they’d stop watching the show if Ava wasn’t going to be returning to the school. She, of course, urged viewers to keep watching, assuring people she isn’t going anywhere.

“When people say, ‘I can’t imagine someone else playing Ava’…that’s the goal,” James says. “They’re going to have to kill me off.”

Listen to James’ full interview on The Awardist podcast below, where she also talks about Ava’s dad coming back into her life, her return to stand-up this spring and summer, and more.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly