Updated April 6, 2026 at 10:00 AM EDT
Unless you're a media nerd or a budding TV critic, you may not know Bill Lawrence.
But if you're a fan of quirky TV comedies built around grown folks hanging out together, then you've probably enjoyed his work. He's created or co-created a string of successful comedies, ranging from Spin City and Scrubs during the heyday of network TV, to modern streaming hits like Ted Lasso and Shrinking.
His latest, HBO's Rooster, features Steve Carell as a successful novelist who never went to college, but winds up teaching at the same university where his grown daughter works to help her get through a public divorce. Carell's character – who Lawrence says is loosely based on Florida journalist/author Carl Hiaasen – soon discovers he may need to reinvent himself, too.
"It started with us three talking about…the nostalgic version of college, where you get to go there and feel safe and decide who you were going to be," says the producer, whose great-great grandfather founded Sarah Lawrence College in 1926. "Who's to say a 60-year-old guy couldn't decide there, who he wants to be in the B-side of his life?"
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Lawrence adds the show's setup was also inspired by the impulses that he, Carell and Rooster co-creator Matt Tarses often felt to try helping their grown children, which was not always appreciated.
"I started telling Steve stories about what it's been like trying to micromanage – in a way that I shouldn't – my daughter's life," he says, laughing. (One of his children is singer, songwriter, actress, and model Charlotte Lawrence.) "All three of us have reached that phase in our kids' lives where we want to control them, keep them safe, make sure nothing bad happens to them. And not only do they reject it unapologetically, but they should be rejecting it. It's not about them needing [help]. It's about us still needing [to help them]. And that kind of became the show."
Lawrence has hit on a way to make middle-aged angst funny and entertaining – he called Ted Lasso, Shrinking and Rooster "my sad, middle-aged guy trilogy" – gathering together quirky sets of characters to bounce snappy dialogue off each other, often rooted in their connections to each other.
But the producer has one important rule: If any one joke can be handed off to any person in a scene, then it's not rooted in character and it's not going to work for his shows.
"I really like that comedy amongst characters, that shorthand that friends have," he adds. "The only danger is, if everybody sounds the same, then you're doomed…But if you can do that quick banter combined with real characters who are mostly people stolen from our lives that we know, then sometimes it will work."
Some critics have called it "hangout TV," for the way these friends spend time with each other. Another way to think of it is "found family TV," where characters of a certain age weather tough moments in life with the help of an array of friends, work colleagues, romantic partners and relatives.
Brett Goldstein, who co-stars and writes on both Ted Lasso and Shrinking, says Lawrence has a talent for making dark ideas appealing. After they worked together on Lasso, Goldstein says Lawrence asked if he had any ideas for a new show.
His original idea for what would become Shrinking was a notion Goldstein admits was "very, very, very dark": A therapist grieving a wife murdered by a rejected patient.
Lawrence suggested something less extreme: a therapist grieving a wife killed by a drunk driver.
Watching the show's storylines from its second season, where Jason Segel's grieving therapist somehow learns to forgive the drunk driver, played by Goldstein, it's tough to imagine that story arc working if the wife's killer had been a vengeful ex-patient.
"Somehow, it ended up being a version that's much more accessible and much much better…I much prefer this," Goldstein says, taking a break from writing the new season of Shrinking. "Here's an example of an idea that was f---ing dark. And we didn't abandon that idea. But we turned it into something that…hits a bigger target. And it still has the emotional and serious things I was trying to get to."
Goldstein offers a simple explanation for the quality on Lawrence's shows. "It's going over and over and over [scripts]…rewriting it a million times and then rewriting it on set and rewriting it when you edit," he adds. "You're just constantly chipping away until it's the best version…And the sort of gift or the magic of it is that it all looks very casual."
Lawrence started his TV writing career in the 1990s, on shows like Boy Meets World and Friends, finding later success as co-creator of the sitcom Spin City, starring Michael J. Fox, along with Scrubs and Cougar Town, starring Courtney Cox. There have also been low points – from getting fired from Friends early in his career to wondering if he'd ever work on another show when the 2019 series on which he was an executive producer, Whiskey Cavalier, was canceled.
With work spanning broadcast, cable and online TV, Lawrence has a few ideas on writing in the streaming age. Series are now expected to have a beginning, middle and end, rather than concepts which can play out indefinitely. Each streaming service seems to have its own look and storytelling style.
And because his series often depend on convincing audiences that the characters are all friends, he likes working with the same people over multiple shows, because he knows their voices well.
"I've been around for the death of the [TV] drama, the death of the [TV] comedy, reality TV…I don't think my voice has changed all that much," Lawrence says. "I've been around enough that my voice was in style, out of style…And then, [starting] with Ted Lasso, people were like, 'Hey, maybe we dig this kind of optimistic found family outlook.'"
At a time when world events can seem so depressing, Lawrence wonders if viewers just find value in shows where people care about each other. "Even if the show doesn't work, at least we're in here kind of writing about people who look out for each other and relationships the way we wish they would be," he adds. "It's kind of refreshing, you know?"
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