Rooster: How Steve Carell and Phil Dunster Really Broke a Bed Filming Their Epic Fight Scene

HBO’s Rooster, starring Steve Carell, Danielle Deadwyler, John C. McGinely, and more, features a cornucopia of comedy: biting sarcasm, emotional awkwardness, meet-cutes, and… bed-breaking farce? The comedy series, which airs weekly on Sunday nights, features Carell as Greg Russo, a famous author who is suckered into teaching at a quiet college to help get his daughter, Katie (Charly Clive), out of hot water. Key to the show’s humor is scene after scene of laugh-out-loud slapstick comedy. Last night’s episode culminated in Katie accidentally letting slip to her father that her estranged husband/ Russian studies professor Archie (Dunster) got his mistress, grad student Sunny (Lauren Tsai), pregnant. Cue Greg scampering across campus and accosting Archie with a ladle while he is giving an interview to the BBC from a hotel room. The two engage in a hilarious knock-down, drag-out fight all while live on the air. Archie even neglected to put on pants (some COVID habits die hard). Before the camera cuts, Greg throws Archie onto a bed, which promptly collapses. It seems that little flourish wasn’t by design. “They broke the bed by accident,” Rooster co-creator Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso, Shr