Bill Lawrence is our guest on this episode of Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards talks The podcast, which was taped at Napa Valley StreamFest recently, is a veteran television producer, writer, and director who has created or co-created many of television’s most popular shows over the past 30 years, including Spin City, Scrubs, Ted Lasso And two current serious Emmy contenders, Shrink and Rooster.
The 57-year-old, who received the Writers Guild of America’s 2025 Herb Sargent Award for Comedic Excellence, has seven Emmy nominations — including six for Outstanding Comedy Series, spread across three shows. Scrubs, Ted Lasso and Shrink – He won two of them, and he described them New York Times As “one of television’s most successful creators”, by The Ankler as “one of television’s most important showrunners” and by FandomWire as “a master of modern television comedy”.
In addition Shrink and RoosterLawrence has two other TV shows currently active: Reboot ScrubsThe first season was released on ABC between February and April; Apple TV Ted LassoThe fourth season of which will be released in August; And Apple TV devices Bad monkeyThe second season of which will be released.
You can listen to the full conversation via the audio player above or read excerpts — lightly edited for clarity and/or brevity — below.
On the high school teacher who changed his life and after whom Dr. Cox was named Scrubs…
“It makes me emotional. I grew up on the East Coast. I didn’t know anyone in Hollywood. I loved sports, and as a kid I was mostly interested in teams I could join and play on. Bob Cox was my first teacher. He was the head of the English department at Ridgefield High School where I went. One of my friends and I used to sneak out to lunch and do stupid things, like drink beer and smoke stuff. And he was [Cox] He was like, “Why don’t you spend your lunch hour filming shit with me about whatever you read, whatever movies you watch?” He convinced me that maybe I could become a writer. He told me at a young age that I was good at writing dialogue. He died in the last two years. But I named Dr. Cox Scrubs After him. “It definitely changed my life.”
When he was fired, in his early twenties, from the writing staff of… Boy meets world, governess and friends…
“I got kicked out of three gigs in a row. Each one was for a different good reason. I was a great comedy kid in my head — I still went to the Comedy Store and saw stand-ups and tried to do stand-up sometimes — and I wrote in a show that I thought was beneath me, which was very insulting and disrespectful. And when I got let go, the guy who created and ran the show said, ‘Anything that finds an audience has merit.'” Just so you know, the show I was shitting my head on was Boy meets world. Written in the first year Boy meets worldAnd it’s very embarrassing to tell this story now because a lot of my contemporaries and friends say, “Oh, that show was such a seminal show for me as a writer, and I loved it so much.” Man, that was a very painful and powerful lesson. Then I was fired governesswhich was also cool because[[Sarcastically]This offer didn’t work either. Then the best package I ever got was that I was a writer on the first season of the series friends. I was deservedly fired from this show. A big part of TV writing, and comedy writing, is getting along with everyone. I didn’t do it well. But the best thing that happened to me when I got excited about this show was that David Crane, who created and ran it with Marta Kauffman and Kevin Bright, called me and recommended me to Gary Goldberg[whomLawrenceco-created[withwhomLawrencewouldco-createdSpin City].”
In the three season shows…
“Shrink It was presented as a three-season story… What really excited me about streaming was every time I would pitch a show online, I would introduce the world and the characters, and because I wanted to tell a complete story, I would say, “This is the beginning, the middle, and the end.” They might say, “But what if the beginning, middle, and end happen, and people still want to watch the show?” I thought to myself: “Well, if the characters are this good and rich, we will come up with another story.” Ted Lasso He is a great example. I didn’t work on the show in the third year[in order to focus on it]. [inordertofocusonShrink]But Jason [Sudeikis] He stayed very true to what we presented at the beginning, middle and end of this show. People will see what’s new Ted Lasso Coming later this year, that is Ted Lassobut it’s a completely different story. There’s no way people can even mix it up. ShrinkWe’ll keep doing it because who doesn’t want to keep working on it?
Why Shrink It can only be achieved in the era of live streaming.
“If I had tried to bring this up Spin City Back in the day, if I had said, “Hey, I want to do a comedy, and it’s about this guy whose wife died, got hit by a drunk driver, was a terrible father, hung out with sex workers, did a lot of drugs, and is just a terrible person,” they would have said, “Dude, you’ve got to go!” That’s part of the fun of it.”
In his new program, Rooster…
The dirty secret is that Steve Carell plays Carl Hiaasen, who wrote… Bad monkey…He’s the sweetest guy, still trying to find his place and his bearings, uncomfortable in his own skin, but beautiful and funny. We took that and combined it with the fact that Steve,[[Rooster Co-creator]Matt Tarses and I all have grown daughters, all the same age, and all of them don’t want us in their lives anymore at the level that we want to be in theirs, so that’s where the show came from.
