Comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, who has deep ties to Long Beach, plays a history teacher at Wilson High (the one in Long Beach) on a new Netflix sitcom called “Mr. Iglesias” set to debut Friday, June 21.
The well-known standup comic—a native of Long Beach who graduated from Wilson in 1994—plays a high school teacher trying to make a difference among a diverse group of students who are underperforming in school.
Iglesias, who wears school swag during the show, told the Mohave Daily News in October that he received permission from Long Beach Unified to use the school’s logo and colors.
A spokesman for Long Beach Unified said the producers didn’t shoot the series at Wilson, but they planned to use some exteriors from the high school near Recreation Park.
This isn’t the first time Wilson has been featured in Hollywood productions. It was the true-story setting of “Freedom Writers,” a book and movie based on the experiences of teacher Erin Gruwell with at-risk students in the 1990s. (Freedom Writers wasn’t shot at Wilson, either; it was shot two Los Angeles area high schools.)