HBO has dropped the trailer for Rooster, giving viewers their first look at Danielle Deadwyler in the sharp, scandal-prone college comedy led by Steve Carell.
The series will premiere March 8, with the streamer unveiling a first trailer that leans hard into family dysfunction, academic scandal, and very public bad decisions.
Set on a college campus, Rooster centers on a bestselling author played by Steve Carell, whose explicit novels unexpectedly earn him a prestigious teaching gig — even as his personal life unravels. Students refer to him by the name of his most famous fictional character, “Rooster,” a nickname that follows him straight into the middle of his daughter’s crisis.
That daughter, portrayed by Charly Clive, is also a professor at the school and currently navigating a very public marital collapse. As revealed in the trailer, her husband (Phil Dunster) has left her for a graduate student (Lauren Tsai), turning the campus into what she describes as “a fishbowl.” Everyone knows everything — including the rumors she’s allegedly burned down a faculty house and assaulted a professor. (One of those claims may be… less accidental than the other.)
Deadwyler appears as a composed yet cutting academic voice amid the chaos, moderating a public discussion around Carell’s character — a bestselling author turned professor whose sex-heavy novels (and messy personal life) have made him campus-famous under the nickname “Rooster.”
John C. McGinley appears as the school’s dean, attempting to rein in the chaos while simultaneously enabling it, and the trailer doesn’t shy away from escalating the absurdity. There’s a lecture dissecting the sex count in Carell’s novel, a tense academic panel moderated by Danielle Deadwyler, and a final sequence involving Carell and Rory Scovel chasing a thief in a stolen school mascot costume.
The series is co-showrun by Lawrence and Matt Tarses, with Lawrence executive producing alongside Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer under Doozer Productions. The producing team also includes Jonathan Krisel, Barbie Adler, Annie Mebane, David Stassen, Anthony King, David Hyman, and Carell himself. Warner Bros. Television serves as the studio.