English Teacher's Brian Jordan Alvarez Previews His New FX Comedy, Talks Finding Humor In High School: 'We Want You Laughing Out Loud'
A new school year is upon us, and with it comes a new TV show taking a hard (and hilarious) look at high school life today.
FX's new comedy English Teacher — premiering Monday at 10/9c — stars Brian Jordan Alvarez as high school teacher Evan, who has to deal with whiny students, angry parents and a checked-out principal as he tries to impart a tiny bit of knowledge to young minds. Alvarez, who created the series as well, tells TVLine he's been developing English Teacher for "somewhere between three and four years," and famed TV producer Paul Simms, of NewsRadio and Atlanta fame, stepped in to suggest they work together: "He's such a genius. I was so honored that he was even, you know, talking to me. So as soon as that was a real offer on the table, I was like, 'Well, yeah, we've got to do this.'"
Alvarez — who played Jack's love interest Estéfan on the Will & Grace revival and has gone viral with his online videos — has plenty of firsthand sources to draw from in writing about life as a public school teacher: "My mom is a teacher. My sister's a teacher. I have a lot of good friends who are teachers." Plus, he adds, "I really do spend time on TikTok, on Instagram [and] on Twitter" hearing from young people, and he wants to capture "this real feeling that things are sort of different right now than they've ever been, but they're also the same as they've always been... You see these same cycles always repeating themselves, but they feel new every time, and hopefully, we're moving toward better and better things as we go."
His character Evan still has hope for the next generation... even if everyone else on the faculty has given up. "He's somebody who's trying to make the world a better place," Alvarez says. "He's trying to do the right thing. He has noble ideals. In a way, he lives in the world he wished existed instead of the world as it is." Evan also "has people in his life" like gym teacher Markie (Sean Patton) or ex-boyfriend Malcolm (Jordan Firstman) "who sort of try to show him, 'Well, this is reality right now, and you need to face that.'" Markie, in particular, is the polar opposite of Evan — a macho conservative, compared to a progressive gay man — but they still manage to forge an unlikely friendship. "I think in some ways, the show is about the joy of not getting along," Alvarez notes with a laugh. "If we could maybe enjoy not getting along a little bit more, our lives could be a little better."
At its heart, though, English Teacher is a comedy, Alvarez emphasizes, even though it touches on heavy issues like homophobia and social media bullying that high school students face today. "Any good comedy has a real drama at its center," he points out. "There's got to be some real stakes." But "we really wanted this to be a comedy, a hard comedy, you know. We want people laughing start to finish... That doesn't mean we can't deal with real stuff. But we want you laughing out loud. I want people watching this show in groups, I want people having watch parties, and I want to hear those laughs."