Lisa Ann Walter Calls “Abbott Elementary”'s Sheryl Lee Ralph Her 'Work Wife': 'We're Always Sharing' (Exclusive)

The actress plays second grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti opposite Ralph's Barbara Howard on the ABC comedy

Jacob Hill might be Melissa Schemmenti’s new best friend after they became roommates on Abbott Elementary, but off-screen, Lisa Ann Walter considers Sheryl Lee Ralph her work BFF.

“We always are handing each other our phones going, ‘Look at that dress.’ Or she's like, ‘Girl, look at this kitchen,’” Walter tells PEOPLE. “We're always sharing, like you do with your work wife.”

The actress loves to cook and often brings her signature Italian dishes to share with the cast. “Quinta loves when I'm bringing meatballs,” Walter says of costar and Abbott creator Quinta Brunson.

Related: Lisa Ann Walter Calls Abbott Elementary's Season 4 Renewal First Time She Felt 'Safe' in Her Career (Exclusive)

So much so that Walter thinks Brunson, 34, wrote in Ms. Schemennti’s love of food and cooking because of her.

“One of the ways that Melissa and I are alike is the food, which they put in because of me, because I kept bringing food to everybody,” Walter says. “We shot the pilot during Easter and I brought Easter pie — Italians will know what that is. I brought some of that and I brought grain pie, which is sweet. They had never had that. So the the love of food and cooking, I think Melissa got that from Lisa rather than the other way around.”

Walter also suggested some “Sicilian slang” to Brunson and the writers to make Melissa sound more authentically Italian.

Despite their commonalities, the mother of four finds Melissa to be “a little more violent than I am.”

“There have been beats where I've said to Quinta, ‘Are you sure? Do you want me to go after this woman with a book? The network won't mind?’” Walter says. “She said, ‘No, they like it.’ I said, ‘All right.’ She's quicker to anger, a little more on the edge and violent, a little shadier past than I've had.”

Walter and her character differ on their views of marriage, too. After two divorces, Walter says, “If the right person came along, I would absolutely be open to it.”

But Melissa turned down a proposal in the season 3 premiere because she didn’t see herself getting married again.

“When Quinta told me, ‘You and Gary, the vending machine guy are going to break up because he really wants to get married and you don't.’ I was like, ‘America's going to hate me,’” Walter recalls. “And she was like, ‘No, they won't. Don't worry.’ And she was absolutely right.”

During the episode that aired after the 2024 Oscars, Melissa had her eye on another man at school: guest star Bradley Cooper.

“Of course it was the scene in my classroom, which I love,” Walter says. “I got to do the most hang time with Bradley Cooper. That man sex on a stick! I was very giggly. And Quinta said, "OK, we've got that version where you're really giddy. Maybe we do one where you're just like, ‘What the hell are you doing here?' A little more like, 'Why are you in my classroom?'" And I just kept being giddy. That's just the reaction that that man elicits.”

Cooper, 49, hails from Philadelphia, where Abbott Elementary takes place, and Walter says she actually studied his accent in order to perfect the Philly dialect. “When people don't do an accent right, it really bums me out,” she says.

The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me author believes her work paid off.

“I knew that if I was going to be embraced by the Philly people, I had to honor them,” Walter says. “I went there to do stand up and they completely embraced me. They would come up and tell me, ‘We don't want to like you because are not from here, but you're all right.’ Because I worked at it.”

Related: Abbott Elementary's Lisa Ann Walter Says She 'Let Go' of 1 'Fantasy' Dating in Her 60s (Exclusive)

After breaking out with the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, Walter says she now gets recognized most for Abbott. “They see the red hair and they go Abbott! Or Celebrity Jeopardy! That's the new one,” Walter says of the game show she won earlier this year. “That's the new one where people scream it from across the street. I had no idea how popular that show was!”

Ultimately, Walter feels fortunate for her career.

“There was no reason why this life has happened for me like it is,” she says. “I didn't have any connections in this business. I'm not a nepo baby. You don't know when that thing that defines who you are in this world might happen. It is an incredible world that we live in that gives you the opportunity more and more every day to be whatever it is you want to be and just grab life by the horns.”

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Abbott Elementary returns to ABC on Wednesday, April 10, at 9 p.m. ET.

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