When parents get together, sooner or later, the conversation turns to their kids.
That was how Rooster began for Steve Carell. He was having lunch at a diner with writers Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses when the talk drifted, as it often does, toward their daughters. All three were entering the same uncertain phase of parenthood, when children who once needed constant guidance begin insisting on finding their own way.
Lawrence – who has experienced a career resurgence in recent years with the success of Ted Lasso, Shrinking and the return of his series Scrubs – had the outline of a show in mind, although the details were still loose.
He imagined a university campus and a story centred on a father and an adult daughter, and on the awkward territory that opens when care starts to look like interference. The more the conversation circled the idea, the more it began to sound like something drawn directly from their lives.
At one point, Lawrence asked Carell if he wanted to collaborate on the show.
“He asked me: ‘Do you want to help write it?’” Carell tells The National. “And I said, ‘Nope.’”
Carell has written projects before, including The 40-Year-Old Virgin and episodes of The Office, but this time, he felt the idea already had its centre of gravity.
“I didn’t want to come in with my set of ideas and lay them on top of his,” he says. “He had the idea. He had a very clear vision of what he wanted to do.”
Lawrence’s vision is born directly from his own reality. His daughter is Charlotte Lawrence, a pop singer who has been touring Europe.
“I just got back from following her around,” Lawrence says. “She humoured me. I so badly wanted to be a ‘dad-ager’ and just be in control of her life and make sure that she’s happy and that nothing bad ever happens to her, and she wanted no part of it, as she shouldn’t.”
That tension sits at the heart of HBO's Rooster, which premieres today on OSN+. Lawrence says he has often struggled with the impulse to remain his daughter’s protector while recognising that she no longer needs it.
“You pretend that you’re doing it for them,” he says. “But really you’re doing it for yourself.”
In the series, Carell plays a bestselling author who takes a writer-in-residence position at a university in the hope of staying close to his professor daughter and remaining part of her life. As they spend more time together, the arrangement reveals how uncertain that role has become.
The comedy often emerges from moments when good intentions collide with reality. The character means well. He listens carefully and still manages to misread the situation, or lets his emotions get the better of him.
For Tarses, that dynamic works especially well with Carell’s style of performance.
“Some of the funniest moments for me are when he’s not even speaking,” he says. “He’s just such a gifted physical performer.”
Carell has built much of his career on that impulse. In his performances, a pause that lingers a moment too long or a glance that arrives a beat late can carry as much weight as the line itself.
Getting the best out of him also presented Lawrence and Tarses with on obvious challenge. If they leaned too heavily on Carell’s most familiar comic rhythms, they risked doing pale imitations his funniest moments.
And even more than a decade after he left the show, Carell’s performance as Michael Scott in The Office remains one of the defining comic roles of the past two decades. Lawrence says they had to consciously pivot to avoid the character's shadow.
“That’s the trap for us,” he says. “Michael Scott is so iconic and specific.”
The solution, he explains, was to lean into Carell’s dramatic instincts and allow the comedy to grow from character.
“We’re comedy writers, so we could talk all day about Anchorman, or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, or The Office,” he says. “But when you watch some of his other work, where the comedy is spare at best, you see the full range of what he can do.”
Tarses says that perspective shaped the character from the start.
“He’s smart and he has some dignity,” he says. “The comedy comes from him being out of place.”
After months of development, Lawrence and Tarses sent Carell the script for the first episode, and Carell felt vindicated for turning down the opportunity to write it himself.
“It was fantastic,” he says. “Pilot scripts are really hard. You have to introduce all these characters and set the tone while also trying to make it funny. But I thought it was great.”
What ultimately convinced him to join the show, he says, was the environment Lawrence creates around his productions.
“He’s funny, he’s very intelligent, and more than anything, he’s a really kind person,” Carell says. “That’s the kind of person I want to work with.”
For Carell, that quality matters more than creative control or star billing.
“There’s no reason to do it unless it’s fun and everybody feels represented and seen,” he says. “Writers, cast, crew, everybody.”
That philosophy also shapes the way Lawrence builds the series. Rooster is structured as a true ensemble rather than a vehicle for a single star, with a supporting cast that includes actors such as John C McGinley (Scrubs), Phil Dunster (Ted Lasso) and Alan Ruck (Spin City).
While a large part of the cast had worked with Lawrence before, he says he encouraged everyone to approach these roles differently from the characters audiences might recognise.
“Anybody who saw John C McGinley play Dr Cox on Scrubs knows he’s not doing any of that on this show,” Lawrence says. “It’s a completely different voice.”
The warmth of a Bill Lawrence show is an intentional byproduct. If it feels like a group of friends enjoying each other’s company, that is often because they are. Cast members return across his projects, writers move with him from one series to the next, and the environment is designed to feel collaborative rather than hierarchical.
After decades admiring each other’s work, Carell now finds himself part of that world as well. However long Rooster lasts, he says the experience will remain special.
“If we never shoot another episode,” he says, “I’d still feel lucky to have been part of it.”
Rooster airs weekly on OSN+ in the Middle East
