Steve Carell's First TV Comedy Since The Office Debuts

Recently, Steve Carell had a misunderstanding with his adult daughter over whether or not to give her a ride home. While both preferred she take an Uber, they agreed Carell could go hours out of his way to drive her instead—thinking it was what the other really wanted to do. His wife, Nancy, eventually stepped in, telling them to stop "acting like idiots" and to just be honest. That's when Carell realized he was "trying too hard" to do what he thought was a good dad deed. "She would really have preferred to take the Uber and I would really have preferred to just go home without dropping her off," Carell said in a recent interview. That type of push and pull between a father and his adult daughter is at the center of Carell's new series Rooster, which premiered Sunday on HBO, the AP reports.

Carell plays Greg Russo, a successful author of "beach reads" whose protagonist is named Rooster. When Greg's daughter Katie (Charly Clive), a professor at Ludlow College, finds herself in the middle of a humiliating breakup, he takes a job at the small liberal arts school to stay close to her. The series, created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, is Carell's first outright television comedy since leaving The Office in 2011. Carell said he was already a fan of Lawrence but reading the pilot episode was all he needed to be "in instantly." He loved the tone and how unique it was.

While Carell is making a return to comedy with Rooster, Danielle Deadwyler, known for dramatic roles like Till and The Piano Lesson, is making her debut in the genre. She plays a poetry professor who finds herself promoted to dean. John C. McGinley of Scrubs plays the president of Ludlow College with a penchant for gossip. And Phil Dunster is Archie, Katie's narcissistic estranged husband. He already had a relationship with Lawrence from working on Ted Lasso. Like Carell, Dunster was impressed by the script. "When I read the script, it was just like, 'Oh man, I wanna watch this show.' I think that's a really nice feeling when you have come across something that you go, 'Oh, I'd love to watch this.'"