when in october Abbott Elementary School The Zack Fox-focused corner of the internet blew up when he brought back the show’s beloved Tariq with a dance number to Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West.”

This wasn’t the first time.

The 33-year-old Atlanta-born actor, who plays the now-ex-boyfriend of Quinta Brunson’s character, has a habit of raising temperatures online, and not just when he pops up online. Abbott. He’s also a DJ and in recent sets Elevator Music and while in the Boiler Room sparked some online fire, especially among fans with two X chromosomes.

“I try to stay away from thirst tweets but it’s inevitable,” he says TR. “There have been moments when women have said things like this, who probably didn’t even know I was following them. I’ll see that and be like, ‘Okay, I have to close this entire app now.’ I said. I think searching for these things eventually turns into self-harm.

His latest situation is Abbott Fox was in the middle of an 11-city DJ tour, but he returned to Los Angeles the night before this interview (and shortly before his Nov. 9 wedding to longtime girlfriend Kat Matutina) and said he’s now looking to double down on his acting career. “My whole life, I always wanted to act and bring good comedy to life,” he says.

He briefly attended SCAD Atlanta and supported himself by working a handful of service industry jobs; This includes his attempt to deliver Jimmy John’s sandwiches on foot because he sold his bike to rent it. She finally mustered the courage to pursue her dream job at Adult Swim and set up a meeting with then-manager Walter Newman.

“I went to him and said, ‘Brother, you raised me, I’ll do anything you want me to do here,’ and he told me no,” says Fox. “He said, ‘You don’t want a job here, you should go out and do your own thing because you have something else to offer.’ “As sad as it made me, it made me realize I needed to think bigger.”

Bigger meant moving to Los Angeles in hopes of eventually selling an animated series. “I learned very quickly that in this business you have to get rid of the outcome in your mind and bow down to what you love.” So he began pouring himself into every creative outlet he could find, eventually collaborating with artistic heavyweights like Thundercat and Flying Lotus. He would DM me from time to time. Abbott creator Brunson — they traveled in overlapping comedy circles — eventually met IRL at the Improv. When Abbott Brunson, who had a series order from ABC and plays second-grade teacher Janine, asked Fox to cast her character’s boyfriend, Tariq, and sent him an early cut of the pilot as part of her pitch.

“I watched it in bed with my fiancée, and we were sitting there crying tears thinking, ‘This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,'” she says. “It also struck me that when a surfer sees a big wave coming, no matter how confident I am in my own skills to do it, there’s still a chance I’ll get destroyed.”

Now in season four, Janine has romantically broken up with Tariq, but Brunson’s writers room likes to keep the character around, so Tarik is now dating the mother of one of the school’s students, making himself the head of the PTA. it means Abbott The gig continues to place Fox alongside a host of young players.

“These kids love me,” he says with a laugh. “The moment I enter the set we run into trouble. We get along extremely well.”

Rabid fans would love to see Fox promoted from a guest role to a regular cast member, but he says these were not by design in his discussions with Brunson. “I talk to Quinta all the time, and she does a great job of compartmentalizing our friendship. I never asked him what the plan was; “He knows that I’m doing my own thing and finding my voice in this world,” he says. “He said, ‘You don’t need to be here all the time.’ But I know that when it’s the right place for the story, I’ll get that call to get your ass over here, and I’ll say hi, show up, and try to score as much as I can.

Fox says her recent time on the show has left her “incredibly hungry” for more acting work, constantly reminding her of how “spoiled” she is in her fledgling on-screen career. “I envisioned a slow burn for myself, I didn’t even think I would get into these fields until I was in my 40s,” he says. “I was trying to have a Steve Harvey-type career, to come out and be in some of Mr. Hightower’s work. Then I would go bald, then I would host a game show.”

He wants to delve more into the science of acting, focusing less on the impact of any given project and more on what it can teach him. He also hasn’t forgotten his animation dreams and is shopping around an anime project manager produced by Donald Glover.

All of this bodes well for his future, but it doesn’t bode well for his hopes of staying away from social media opinions.

“When I first got on Twitter, I was just trying to make my 10 closest friends laugh, but then we all found jobs and some even ended up on the cover of your publication,” he says. “So now I need to learn how to be addicted to the internet in a selfless way. I will be the Phantom of the Internet Opera. I’m giggling here, but I won’t get into that.”

This story appeared in the November 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.