Bill Lawrence on the College Vibe in His New HBO Comedy and Working with Phil Dunster Again
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for the pilot episode of Rooster on HBO Max.
Bill Lawrence’s latest series, Rooster, co-created with Bad Monkey collaborator Matt Tarses, is set on the vibrant Ludlow College campus, where a mix of passionate professors and ambitious students interact.
Lawrence, also the mind behind renowned shows like Scrubs and Spin City, opened up about his personal experiences in higher education. His reflections resonate with themes shared by his Shrinking collaborator, Harrison Ford, during his recent acceptance speech for a Lifetime Achievement Award.
“I’ll be candid. I was embarrassed about loving writing and storytelling and theater and all that stuff when I was in high school. I’m ashamed of ever having been embarrassed,” Lawrence stated. “I played a lot of sports. And I thought ‘Oh, maybe it’s not cool.’ I don’t know, and then college, you get there, and you’re like, ‘Oh, sh-t, it’s okay. Not only is it okay, but all the cool people are doing this stuff. So college is a place where young people get to go reinvent themselves and decide what direction they want to go with their life, if they’re lucky enough to go.”
Tarses, who attended Williams College, and star Steve Carell, who played hockey at Denison University in Ohio, draw from their own campus experiences. The initial interactions between Professor Dylan Shepherd, played by Danielle Deadwyler, and President Walter Mann, portrayed by John C. McGinley, hint at the generational tensions prevalent in today’s academic environment.
The setting allows for an intricate ensemble, linked through both professional and personal relationships, particularly focusing on characters Greg, Katie, and the university. Lawrence and Tarses were eager to work with Phil Dunster, emphasizing the contrasts between his character Archie and his previous role as Jamie Tartt in Ted Lasso. They aimed to showcase Dunster’s unique ability to humanize otherwise unlikeable characters, a skill evident in both the Manchester footballer and Archie, a Russian studies professor who is embroiled in controversy surrounding his marriage to Katie and an affair with grad student Sunny, played by Lauren Tsai.
“The reason that I work with people over and over again, if I think they’re super talented, A, and B, they’re people I want to spend time with anyways. Phil is both of those,” Lawrence noted. “He has this outrageously great quality for an actor, which is he can do reprehensible things without you ever going, ‘Oh, I f–king hate that.’ And that is a gift.”
A pivotal moment in the pilot occurs when Greg confronts Archie about a first-edition copy of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, an interaction inspired by Lawrence and Tarses’ personal experiences. In a humorous twist, Carell’s character mistakenly links Anton Chekhov to Tolstoy, leading to a significant quote from Chekhov: “No one must be humiliated.”
“It’s part of the ethos for the show. ‘You can’t embarrass [anyone],” Lawrence explained. “But that joke exists on some level because Matt Tarses is so much smarter than I am, and so much more book smart.”
Unfortunately for the characters, Katie eventually sets fire to the coveted book in a fit of rage following the revelation of Sunny’s pregnancy.
Lawrence reflects on Katie’s struggles, stating that her immediate focus on her partner inhibits her from building meaningful relationships.
“Katie got to this school [and] she didn’t build relationships because she just met a significant other, a partner, right away and became — which I think happens to lots of young men and young women — his partner rather than her own self,” Lawrence commented.
Loneliness is a recurring theme throughout the series. “Greg’s lonely. Walt, I think he says, ‘I’m painfully lonely.’ His wife’s gone for half the year,” Lawrence explained. “If you want me to get personal, [it’s] really hard when your kids leave. My daughter’s off on her own. My boys, one’s graduated from college. One just left for NYU.”
In Rooster, as the narrative unfolds, viewers can expect to see how these themes of identity, connection, and isolation play out within the backdrop of academic life.
New episodes of Rooster will premiere weekly on HBO Max, airing Sunday nights at 10 p.m. ET.
