Quinta Brunson is becoming a red carpet killer!

The Emmy-winning star walked the carpet at the 2026 Actor Awards in a custom Gabriela Hearst gown and used the glamorous moment to talk about balance, craft, and the responsibilities that come with a hit show. Brunson told Vanity Fair she loves this particular awards show because “it’s really nice just celebrating the rest of the acting community specifically.” 

On the red carpet, Brunson explained why she chose a black-and-white dress that gave both playful and formal. “The black and white of the dress, it feels like very much where I am right now,” she said, adding that the silhouette’s exaggerated sleeves created “something of a heart-shaped silhouette.” Her look, she told Vanity Fair, was meant to reflect a moment of clarity, “I feel like it’s becoming, for me, a very black-and-white world—my decision making, how I have to look at things—but still fun.”

Brunson also spoke candidly about the way long-running television work shapes an actor. Of sustaining her character Janine’s through-lines over five seasons on “Abbott Elementary,” she said the challenge is to “keep what was there originally and show the growth without losing what was originally there,” and noted that her cast’s chemistry lets them “play off of each other’s comedic rhythms.” Those rhythms were on display again at the ceremony, where the Abbott ensemble opened the show with a prerecorded bit that leaned into the characters’ established quirks, namely Sheryl Lee Ralph’s character Barbara, who never seems to get actors’ or movie names correct. 

Behind the glamour, Brunson was blunt about priorities. “Doing the good work first — in my writing, producing, and acting career — is what gets you to the carpet in the first place,” she said. For Brunson, style acts as an expression of craft, not the other way around, and she made it clear that she sees awards as a moment to celebrate collective labor as much as individual recognition. “So that’s kind of my main goal, to make sure my work is good,” Brunson said.