After a brief turn with the dramedy The Four Seasons, Steve Carell is back with a brand new full comedy, HBO's Rooster.
Created by Scrubs and Ted Lasso's Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, the actor, 63, stars as Greg Russo, a best-selling author who aspires to be more like the title character of his book series, aptly named "Rooster."
Things take a turn when his daughter Katie, played by Charly Clive, ends up separating from her husband, played by Ted Lasso's Phil Dunster, when he instead begins a relationship with a graduate student, played by Lauren Tsai.
© Getty ImagesThe show is set on a college campus, and Greg decides to become a more active part of college life to better support his daughter. Danielle Deadwyler and John C. McGinley make up the rest of the main cast.
Pulling from personal experience
At a press conference for the show in New York City on March 3, attended by HELLO!, Bill, Matt, Steve, Charly, Phil, Danielle, John and Lauren spoke about the series ahead of its March 8 release, how they built a "family" on set, and finding links to their own family life.
Speaking of what inspired the show, Bill noted that he, Matt and Steve all found common ground in being parents to grown-up daughters who have found their own lives and independence, away from their dads (coincidentally, both Bill and Steve's daughters are now 25).
© Katrina Marcinowski/HBO"And I'll tell you the one correlation between the three of us we've talked about a bunch," Bill, 57, stated. "One topic we all found is that we are all, right now, wrestling with what it means to be a parent of a young woman who has… entered into adulthood and maybe does not want you in their life as much as you would choose to be interested in their life, and for every aspect of it."
Later in the conversation, when sharing what draws him to specific roles, Steve pointed out that while his relationship with his daughter Annie doesn't really share much in common with Greg and Katie's relationship, he still found ample room to pull from.
© Katrina Marcinowski/HBO"And of course, the relationship with his daughter, which is not exactly my relationship with my daughter, but I can draw from that because I have experience," he noted.
Collaborating and creating
To add to the dynamic on set, Danielle, 43, spoke of the close collaboration between all the cast members, specifically pointing to the workshops and readings she'd have with Steve and the showrunners when the show was in its early stages.
© Getty Images"We were diving, we were working it out, it was really, really fun," she gushed. "We did that a couple days, and I was like, 'Man, I love this guy, this is great.'"
"And then you just dive into the TV landscape of it all, it just moves faster," Danielle added of the specific nuances of creating TV versus movies. "You're having a dialogue with folks who want your freaking input, who are trying to craft with you. Everything about this was hyper collaborative and fun, and a joyful project."
© Getty ImagesRooster premieres on HBO on March 8, with a new episode then released every week.
