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 coll
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