Enrico Colantoni as Principal Grant Moretti in ENGLISH TEACHER – Season 1 | ©2024 FX/Pari Dukovich

Enrico Colantoni plays Morrison-Hensley High School Principal Grant Moretti in the new comedy ENGLISH TEACHER. The series premieres on FX with a double episode on Monday, September 2. Episodes will be available to stream on Hulu the day after they air on FX.

ENGLISH TEACHER is set in Austin, Texas (it’s shot in Atlanta, Georgia), and centers around English teacher Evan Marquez, played by series creator/director Brian Jordan Alvarez. Evan is gay and Latinx, which gives him a distinct perspective. The school is awash in every kind of personal politics; in the opening episode, a parent wants Evan brought up on charges for kissing his then-boyfriend where students could see. Other students don’t think Evan is enough of an activist to be credible. Principal Moretti, who didn’t used to have to deal with these issues, wishes everyone would not give him these headaches.

As an actor, Colantoni, originally from Toronto, Canada, has dealt with pretty much everything. His roles span from playing J. Edgar Hoover in the miniseries THE KENNEDYS and an armed tactical response team sergeant in five seasons of FLASHPOINT to being a regular in the comedies HOPE AND GLORIA and JUST SHOOT ME! and the beloved science-fiction film GALAXY QUEST (for which Colantoni devised his character’s seal-bark alien Thermian language).

When FX has a panel for ENGLISH TEACHER at the winter Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour in Pasadena, series creator Alvarez recalls that Colantoni captured Principal Moretti’s dismay perfectly at their first meeting. “In Enrico’s audition, it starts with him like this.” Alvarez covers his face with both hands.

On the panel, Colantoni expresses his joy at having Alvarez not only as creator and costar, but as a director who solicits improvisation. “Brian had a sense of a conductor, of conducting in the moment. He was going, ‘And try this, try that,’ and we’re still rolling. I go, ‘We can do that? We shouldn’t cut it?’ ‘No, just keep it. Try something. Do that thing. It was just electrifying to be a part of it. There was nothing sterile about going to work, ever.”

After the panel, Colantoni sits down for a longer discussion of ENGLISH TEACHER. He elaborates on improvisation during scenes. “It was absolutely encouraged. I come from a classical background, I have an admiration and respect for what the writers write, I know how much time it takes for them to write things like that, and I want to give them what they wrote, I want to bring what they wrote on the page, and bring that to life. And then beyond that, when they say, ‘Okay, now let’s throw it all away, and let’s just have fun,’ it’s like, ‘Okay.’ So, when you get both worlds, it’s very exciting.”

This doesn’t mean changing the framework of the scene or, for instance, bursting into Thermian. “Oh, my God. No, it’s all within the reality of the world we’re in. You can’t go outside of the world. We agree on the world that we live in, and we have to operate that world, always.”

Colantoni says he was looking for something like ENGLISH TEACHER. “I wanted to be in an environment that was as much fun as JUST SHOOT ME was. Because that was probably the most fun I’d ever had on a TV show. And this show was a different format [single-camera as opposed to multi-camera], it’s different in that way, but it’s just so much fun. And you get what you want. You ask, and you get what you want eventually, if it’s specific and clear enough. That’s what happened.”

Does Colantoni see any similarities to his own high school experiences?

“No similarities at all. I went to school in the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s. It was a parochial school, and it was very small, and everybody knew everybody. So, it was much more intimate. The environment on this show is just so much bigger and diverse and just anything goes. I would have been frightened going to a high school like this, because I was always afraid of being bullied, I was always afraid of being unaccepted. I think I would have fallen prey to a school like this.”

ENGLISH TEACHER – Season 1 Key Art | ©2024 FX

Does Colantoni think Principal Moretti is averse to doing his job, or does he just feel that he’s doing his job the way any reasonable person would do it?

“I don’t think he’s work-averse at all. I think he’s just been doing it for so long that he knows all the red tape, he knows what he needs to deal with, he knows how to make things fit. I think he cares a great deal about his staff and everybody else.

“But I do believe he comes from my generation, where he just doesn’t know what the changes mean, necessarily. He’s trying to just make sense out of how the world is changing. So, he seems tired. He seems exhausted, for sure. I don’t think he’s averse to the work.”

Instead, Colantoni feels that Moretti is, in his way, trying to calm down volatile situations. “‘Let’s bring it back to a place where we can all understand, and not feel like …’ To be brought up on charges – what Evan goes through in the first episode – the [parent] accusing him of kissing his boyfriend in front of [students].

“Are we aware that the world is changing, and yet, there’s a world that isn’t changing, and doesn’t want to change? So, you’re dealing with so many different worlds. My high school was like, if you got in trouble at school, you’d get in trouble at home,” he laughs.

“‘You’ll all get in trouble and go to jail.’ You couldn’t do it back then. There were so many things you just couldn’t do. Now, you try to arrest anybody, you try to reprimand anybody, suddenly, you’re canceled. You’re canceled for trying to exert authority. Parents and teachers these days are losing their authority over their children. They can’t educate your children. You have all the responsibility, with no authority. You’re blamed if you mess it up, and never appreciated when you actually do it well enough for them.”

Colantoni can’t immediately think of anything he can compare to ENGLISH TEACHER, but expresses his love of comedy overall. “Comedy is always so special, because everybody comes with an open heart. You have to come with an open heart. GALAXY QUEST was like that. The show I just did in Canada called THE TRADES was another funny comedy, produced by the people from TRAILER PARK BOYS. And so, when you’re allowed to just feel free, that builds camaraderie, that builds a community.”

Does screen comedy afford more time to actually do the work of acting, rather than having time taking up by the technicalities of staging complicated shots for an action drama?

“I think so. I think there’s more fun involved, because so much of it happens in the moment, especially on this show. The level of improv on this show is unlike anything I’ve experienced before. So, that’s not something you prepare for, you just have to be listening and playing. You just have to be willing to play.”

And what would Colantoni most like people to get out of ENGLISH TEACHER?

“I want people to see how people with different opinions can still get along, and there’s still a heart and a respect for each other. I think that’s what we all aspire to in the world, in the country. We don’t have to agree. We can still come from a place of respect and accept the differences, and just keep moving forward, and expanding from the differences.

“It’s so wonderful that these characters – they bicker, they bicker, but then at the end, it’s full respect. I appreciate that in athletes, I appreciate that in the respect fighters have for each other. They have mutual respect, but they’re ready to,” he bumps his fists together in a boxing gesture. “I don’t know if that happens in politics anymore, I’m not sure, but it happens in this world, and in this show. I want people to see it for that.”

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