Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster Joins Steve Carell’s New HBO Comedy

Well maybe this explains why Phil Dunster is not slated to return as a star on Ted Lasso! Richmond AFC’s resident bad boy-gone-good has reportedly been cast as a series regular opposite The Office star Steve Carell in Bill Lawrence‘s new television comedy.

Though details are being kept under wraps (according to Deadline‘s reporting), the Untitled Comedy Series from Ted Lasso, Scrubs, and Shrinking creator Bill Lawrence, Scrubs’ Matt Tarses, and Warner Bros. TV already has a 10-episode, first season order from its future home, HBO.

What Is Steve Carell and Phil Dunster’s New Show About?

All anyone knows thus far about the series is that it, “is set on a college campus and centers on an author’s (Carell) complicated relationship with his daughter.” No word on who Dunster is set to play — perhaps the boyfriend of the daughter? Another author or college professor? Whatever the case may be, the casting and creative team involved makes this a project worth keeping an eye on as more details are revealed.

Lawrence has, in previous interviews, mentioned that Carell’s character has a connection to another project of his, the Vince Vaughn starrer Bad Monkey. Carell’s character, he explained, “is loosely based in our heads” on Bad Monkey author Carl Hiaasen. “Carl is such a self-effacing everyman, author, man of the people, real humble, and Steve is playing a very similar character that lands in the world of academia by accident.”

“Steve Carell is such an inspiring comedic guy to me,” he said.

“For what I do, someone has to be able to be funny and goofy and silly and then turn on a dime, and he used to do that in The Office. That was a ludicrous character that would still make me sometimes well up at the end. So super-duper excited and definitely feeling both the pressure and the opportunity at HBO, because for writers like me, it was always the gold standard type channel,” Lawrence explained. “And I’m well aware that Curb’s gone and Barry’s gone, their wheelhouse comedies are not around.”

Though it will be Carell’s first time working with Lawrence, the series will be a reunion for Dunster and Lawrence, who worked together on Ted Lasso. As Jamie Tartt, the cockiest footballer on the pitch, Lawrence and Dunster worked together for three seasons, crafting one of the most engaging storylines on the show, thanks to Lawrence’s writer’s room and Dunster’s enigmatic acting choices.

And fans and industry professionals agreed, giving Dunster an Emmy nomination in 2023 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Dunster’s additional TV credits include a role in the second season of the psychological thriller Surface, the Prime Video series The Devil’s Hour, Ten Percent (a remake of the French series Call My Agent), ITV’s The Trouble With Maggie Cole, the HBO miniseries Catherine The Great, and Amazon’s Catastrophe. As for movie roles, Dunster can be seen inThe Good Liar, Kenneth Branagh’s The Murder on the Orient Express, and Judy. He also recently completed his directorial debut with Idiomatic, a short film he wrote, produced, and starred in alongside Kerry Godliman.