Rooster isn’t your typical comedy. For one thing, it’s set in the hallowed, slightly stuffy halls of the fictional Ludlow College, where professors, administrators, and liberal arts students become active players in a campus comedy. For another, the core of Rooster’s story is Greg Russo, a divorced paperback author and father stuck in a personal crisis, played with stunning gravitas by Steve Carell.
“[Greg] is a dorky, middle-aged guy trying to figure out who he is,” Rooster showrunner Bill Lawrence told Rolling Stone Philippines, before joking that he’d based the character on his co-creator, Matt Tarses.
Lawrence and Tarses, both of whom are longtime collaborators, have gifted us with some of the best comedy shows of the 21st century. Lawrence, in particular, is credited for creating shows like Scrubs, Ted Lasso, and Shrinking, while the two of them both took the helm on creating the Vince Vaughn-led dark comedy, Bad Monkey.
On the subject of their latest show, the two co-creators emphasized that they drew from their own experiences as fathers to grown-up daughters, just like the show’s protagonist. In Rooster, Greg is constantly trying to connect with his daughter Katie (Charly Clive), a professor going through a crisis of her own: her husband Archie (Phil Dunster) has left her for the much younger grad student, Sunny (Lauren Tsai).
“I can’t speak for Bill,” quipped Tarses, “but we’re both slightly middle-aged guys who have all these new challenges to face at a certain age. There’s parenting, loneliness, the different circles we move in, [and] the thought that it’s too late to try something new.”
“Matt, Steve Carell, [and I] all have daughters of a very similar age,” added Lawrence. “In our real lives, we’re all struggling to try not to be too intrusive in their lives, although all we want to do is be around them all the time. My daughter’s a singer and I was just [in Europe] following her around and annoying her.”
More Humor, Please
For Clive and Carell, who also serves as an executive producer on Rooster, it was a privilege to work with the two showrunners. “[Rooster’s] was one of the best pilot scripts I’ve ever read,” said Carell. “It’s so hard to do a good pilot script, but this one set up a world with all these characters with their own backstories, and it did it effortlessly. I loved the relationship that was being formed between [my character and Charly’s], and working with Bill Lawrence… he’s such a force of nature, super smart, really funny, and an incredibly kind human being.”
“When [the script] first came into my inbox, it was called ‘Untitled Steve Carell Project,’” joked Clive. “And I was like, well, if I’d like to meet Steve Carell one day to work with him, that would be the dream!”
The show’s main ensemble echoed Carell and Clive, noting that working on Rooster allowed them to experiment with their comedy. Tsai, who herself is an artist and animator outside the world of acting, noted that the show gave her the opportunity to express herself in a new way.
“I started posting my animation videos on YouTube when I was 11, so I’ve used my whole life to express and understand myself,” said Tsai. “But there was also this aspect of sharing myself publicly online that was its own performance as well. So when I got the chance to act on a show like this… I don’t want to say that it scratches an itch, but it was something I was so drawn to because I love the idea of performing and becoming other characters. Being able to perform on [Rooster] with my own physicality and emotions has taught me a lot about myself.”
Other main ensemble actors emphasized that the show’s academic setting has allowed it to explore difficult and important conversations, laced with its own style of humor. “Part of the comedy in [Rooster] is seeing these various generations, cultures, and people gather at university and approach some of these hard conversations with humor,” said Dunster, who himself is no stranger to working on a Bill Lawrence project (he stars as Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso). “More humor in the world is good, and… we need some humanity. I hope people come away from Rooster with that… don’t take yourself so bloody seriously all the time.”
“Yeah, ‘don’t take yourself so bloody seriously,’” joked Danielle Deadwyler, who plays Poetry Professor Dylan Shepherd. “But yes, there is a cultural shifting that can take place within comedy. And with Rooster, it’s taking a look at everybody going through this massive change. Just look at Steve Carell’s character, who’s going into this space and feeling out of place while discovering himself… I hope the show infuses people with this possibility of protecting change and continuing to celebrate it.”
Rooster is currently streaming on HBO Max.
