{"id":329732,"date":"2026-03-09T11:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329732\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T11:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:21:09","slug":"for-steve-carell-and-charly-clive-its-ok-to-play-messy-in-rooster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329732\/","title":{"rendered":"For Steve Carell and Charly Clive, it’s OK to play messy in ‘Rooster’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Steve Carell knew from the moment he read alongside Charly Clive that she was the right person to play his daughter in the new HBO series \u201cRooster<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never felt like Charly was auditioning. It just felt like two actors having a go at a scene,\u201d he remembers in a Midtown Manhattan hotel room earlier this week. \u201cI thought, \u2018Well, we\u2019re done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For Clive, the Zoom call would have been enough. \u201cI was like, at the very least I\u2019ve met Steve Carell,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Now they play Greg and Katie Russo in the series, which premiered Sunday. Greg is the best-selling author of a series of airport novels featuring a swaggering hero called Rooster. Katie is a professor of art history. When he arrives on her campus to give a talk, she\u2019s in the midst of an emotional tailspin: Her husband (Phil Dunster of \u201cTed Lasso\u201d), a fellow faculty member, cheated on her with a graduate student. Now they are together and she\u2019s adrift. Greg, seeing his daughter flail, decides to do whatever he can to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cRooster,\u201d created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses, has what is now Lawrence\u2019s signature mix of character drama and goofy comedy with a touch of uplift. Carell and Clive got together on the day of their New York premiere to discuss their father-daughter pairing.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

In \u201cRooster,\u201d Steve Carell plays author Greg Russo, who arrives to help daughter Katie (Charly Clive), a college professor, after her husband cheats on her with a graduate student.<\/p>\n

(Katrina Marcinowski \/ HBO)<\/p>\n

Steve, how did this project come to you? <\/p>\n

Steve Carell: I got a call from Bill Lawrence. Invited me to lunch with his partner, Matt Tarses, and they pitched this idea. It was a very broad idea. There were very few specifics.<\/p>\n

What was the broad idea? <\/p>\n

Carell: The bullet point was the father-daughter relationship. I wouldn\u2019t even call it a pitch because he wasn\u2019t pitching me. He was inviting me to be a part of this. The three of us all have adult daughters around the same age so, thematically, we all understood what was at stake. [Laughs] They went away and wrote a pilot. He would check in, and we\u2019d talk about certain components. But mostly, he and Matt just went off and wrote it. And then several months later, I received the pilot script and thought it was fantastic.<\/p>\n

Charly, you\u2019ve only worked in the U.K., how did you get involved? <\/p>\n

Charly Clive: Well, I got an email from my agent saying, \u201cWe\u2019d love to have you submit a tape for this thing.\u201d And it was called, at the time, \u201cUntitled Steve Carell Project.\u201d I almost didn\u2019t care what the script was like. I was like, \u201cI just want to do a tape that Steve Carell might one day see.\u201d Then I read the script, and I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to be really sad if I don\u2019t get this, but I know I won\u2019t get this because it\u2019s so far out of where I am in my career.\u201d Then I didn\u2019t hear anything for a while, and I was like, \u201cWell, that\u2019s how it goes.\u201d I got a call, and my agent was like, \u201cBill Lawrence would like to have you on a Zoom and have you read again.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh my God. That\u2019s great.\u201d And he was like, \u201cThey\u2019re trying to figure out Steve\u2019s schedule.\u201d And I was like, \u201cHuh?\u201d Hung up and paced around my room and was like, \u201cWhat do I do? This is so crazy.\u201d So obviously I tidied my entire bedroom because I knew the Zoom was going to face out. And then we met at 10 p.m. that night, my time.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

\u201cI almost didn\u2019t care what the script was like,\u201d said Charly Clive, who plays Katie in the series. \u201cI was like, \u2018I just want to do a tape that Steve Carell might one day see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

(The Tyler Twins \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

Our final Zoom, I was at my friend\u2019s wedding, and it was the rehearsal dinner. We\u2019re in the middle of nowhere in the north of England in an old manor house where her wedding was. I was supposed to make a speech, but I was like, \u201cI\u2019m really sorry. I have to go on this Zoom. It might be the most important Zoom I ever go on.\u201d And she was like, \u201cNo worries.\u201d She got into her rehearsal dinner, and she was like, \u201cGuys, just so everyone knows, everyone has to get off the WiFi because Charly needs it. And we all have to talk at a whisper.\u201d So she had her rehearsal in a whisper so that these guys didn\u2019t have to hear speeches being made.<\/p>\n

Carell: I didn\u2019t know that. Wow.<\/p>\n

Clive: She was like, \u201cYou better get that role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve, what was important for you to show about this relationship between a father and an adult daughter with both of them still going through growing pains? <\/p>\n

Carell: I think there are a lot of cliches that you can lean into about that relationship, and I think that Bill and Matt avoided those. I mean, some are cliches because they are true: Overbearing fathers trying to dictate what\u2019s best for their children. I get that side of it, and it\u2019s fodder for comedy, for sure. But at the same time, I think they tried to draw this relationship in a very real way. What sparked my interest was that they\u2019re both going through things. It looked at both of their perspectives in terms of this relationship, in terms of what they were going through. And in a lot of ways, they have parallel problems, and they\u2019re dealing with them differently. Even though he\u2019s much older, he\u2019s not necessarily wiser in some ways, and he\u2019s going to learn from her. She\u2019ll learn from him.<\/p>\n

We meet Katie at an incredibly low point. How did you get your head around that, Charly? <\/p>\n

Clive: I think a lot of women on TV recently have been sort of messy, and that can be really great. And I also sometimes feel like that\u2019s not super accurate. I think that men sometimes are allowed to be funny in the mess. And women can be a bit more tragic.<\/p>\n

The thing I really like about Katie is she really doesn\u2019t want to be the victim of anything. To be vulnerable, to her, feels like weakness. Then her dad comes crashing in, who is a vulnerability cheerleader, and is really encouraging her to feel your feelings, which is such an important thing. I\u2019m close to my dad, and my dad is, I would also say a vulnerability cheerleader, and a very refreshingly emotional Englishman. There\u2019s not too many of them. It\u2019s really nice to see people encourage people to feel things and also to say it\u2019s OK to feel things. I think they\u2019re both kind of coming of age. It\u2019s a nice time to meet people who on paper have their s\u2014 together and very quickly realize they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of women on TV recently have been sort of messy, and that can be really great. And I also sometimes feel like that\u2019s not super accurate,\u201d says Charly Clive about her character.<\/p>\n

(The Tyler Twins \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

How did you start to figure out each other\u2019s rhythms? <\/p>\n

Carell: We just had a vibe to begin with. It was very easy. We never talked about it that much. It didn\u2019t feel very actor-y. In terms of the father-daughter dynamic, I immediately felt very protective of her just in general. Partly because she was new to L.A. and new to this. We were on the Warner Brothers lot. Very Hollywood-y. I wanted her to know that she\u2019s not only welcome here, but appreciated and celebrated, and this is where she should be. But I can understand, having gone through it, it\u2019s daunting.<\/p>\n

Charly, what were your Steve Carell touchstones? <\/p>\n

Clive: Well, it was such a relief to actually meet Steve in real life on the first day when we did the read through because you build up such a picture and an idea of somebody. And I\u2019m going to get emotional \u2014<\/p>\n

Carell: And I\u2019m so disappointing.<\/p>\n

Clive: So disappointing. No, Steve\u2019s also a huge hero of my dad\u2019s, my non-TV dad. So, the whole way through the process, me and my dad have been like, \u201cThis is the wildest thing ever.\u201d Obviously, I grew up watching \u201cThe Office,\u201d and I\u2019ve been completely enamored by it and really like, that\u2019s a comfort show that got me through COVID. But one of my top five films of all time is \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine,\u201d which just blows me away. I watch it every year around my birthday because I think it\u2019s just a remarkable film, and I completely love it. Your performance in that is insane. It\u2019s so beautiful. To then walk into a room and meet him was crazy. And I was like, play it cool, play it cool, play it cool. I think that one of the first things I said to you was, \u201cI\u2019m really scared.\u201d And Steve was like, \u201cYeah, me too.\u201d It made me laugh, and I was like, \u201cOh, we\u2019re going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve, you\u2019ve jumped around tones a lot recently, doing a dark drama like \u201cThe Patient\u201d and Chekhov on Broadway. Why was this emotional but comedic area something you wanted to play in now? <\/p>\n

Carell: It was more about Bill than anything because \u201cThe Patient,\u201d I wanted to do that because I was a fan of the creators of \u201cThe Americans.\u201d I don\u2019t have a master plan to answer your question. [\u201cRooster\u201d] feels fairly lived in. It\u2019s fun to play with different aspects of that as an actor to make a left turn into something that\u2019s a little more tragic maybe after something that\u2019s been just ridiculous. It\u2019s just a fun exercise to have some pretty big, broad, physical comedy, but then go very grounded in the next moment with something else.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Steve Carell on working with Charly Clive: \u201cWe just had a vibe to begin with. It was very easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The Tyler Twins \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

You do have some great moments of physical comedy. How do you think about playing those scenes? <\/p>\n

Carell: I just think about somebody like Peter Sellers who just excelled at that. And to me, watching somebody like that, who can do the broadest physical comedy, but at the same time be oddly a human being and somebody that you relate to. You never got the sense that Peter Sellers was winking at the camera or that it was Peter Sellers. It was Clouseau, or whichever character he was playing, who was trying to maintain his dignity and failing miserably but trying to hold on to a sense of self and composure while everything is crumbling. That to me is really funny, if you believe it. If you think \u2026 \u201cOh boy, this actor thinks they\u2019re doing something hilarious.\u201d I\u2019m out. That doesn\u2019t make me laugh.<\/p>\n

Charly, Phil Dunster gets to keep his British accent here, but you don\u2019t. Was that hard? <\/p>\n

Clive: The only time I slightly worried about my accent was when I was doing scenes with Phil because it\u2019s too easy to get comfortable. Also because lots of my scenes with Phil are me giving him a bollocking or getting really angry with him. When you\u2019re emotional, sometimes the accent slips again, but I loved it. I love doing an accent. I think that comes slightly from having a comedy background because we\u2019re always doing accents and wearing silly hats and trying desperately to have people laugh. And my mum\u2019s Mexican American, so I\u2019ve grown up hearing the accent constantly and mimicking.<\/p>\n

Steve, how did you think about Greg\u2019s alter ego, Rooster, the star of his books? <\/p>\n

Carell: My instinct was to not make Greg a nebbish, because I didn\u2019t want it to be Walter Mitty. I didn\u2019t want it to be this person who\u2019s a complete introvert, nerd, not of this world, fantasizing about being this superhero. Because I thought that seems like such a trope. I feel like he\u2019s got a lot going for him. He\u2019s a smart guy. He\u2019s intelligent. He\u2019s pretty funny.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s sort of a heartthrob on campus once he gets there.<\/p>\n

Carell: Well, I don\u2019t think he sees it that way, but he kind of likes it that people might say that. I feel like he\u2019s a fairly put-together guy. There has to be a reason why the woman who married him married him, [Katie\u2019s mom, played by Connie Britton], because she is a force of nature and really smart, and there has to be something about him that is formidable as well, that is appealing. So I tried to lean into that aspect of it. He\u2019s not fully formed. He\u2019s got some rough edges, but I think there\u2019s self-awareness too. He knows where most of his faults lie. He\u2019s just not sure about the path to get better. That to me felt like part of his journey right from the top in terms of that Rooster character and what that signifies to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Carell knew from the moment he read alongside Charly Clive that she was the right person to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[154968,162733,79743,41394,14224,146,162735,85,46,162736,1669,162737,160055,157178,162734,139777,9475,762],"class_list":{"0":"post-329732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bill-lawrence","9":"tag-carell","10":"tag-charly-clive","11":"tag-dad","12":"tag-daughter","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-father-daughter-relationship","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-katie-russo","18":"tag-lot","19":"tag-matt-tarses","20":"tag-phil-dunster","21":"tag-rooster","22":"tag-steve","23":"tag-steve-carell","24":"tag-thing","25":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}