Move over Game of Thrones, another HBO show might be ready to axe some of your beloved favorites. A second season of Rooster, the breakout comedy starring Steve Carell, Danielle Deadwyler, John C. McGinley, Phil Dunster, Connie Britton, and more, was recently announced. But a batch of new episodes doesn’t necessarily mean you can expect all of your favorite characters to return, according to McGinley, who portrays Ludlow College president Walter Mann.
“As Season 1 progresses in academia at Ludlow College, everyone is expendable,” McGinley said ahead of Rooster’s Episode 7 premiere. “I can tell you [that] without wrecking things since I don’t know anything [about Season 2].”
McGinley has worked for years with executive producer Bill Lawrence on Scrubs, another show that moved on from core characters (see Scrubs Season 9). Getting to work with Lawrence on Rooster was a completely different experience.
“That’s like riding a bike,” McGinley said of his time playing Dr. Cox on Scrubs. “At 16 hours a day for the better part of 10 years, those rhythms are very familiar to me. [With Rooster] Bill said, ‘I’m going to steal your life.’ I didn’t really know how to process that. Bill said, ‘I want this to be an exercise in restraint, and I want to see it as flat as possible.’ That’s not Cox. That’s a point of departure just rhythmically. Walt is a desperately, deeply lonely guy. Next to my wife, Billy knows me better than anybody on the planet. I don’t curate what Bill’s doing with Walt.”
In addition to his relationship with Lawrence, McGinley was eager to join the cast of Rooster for the chance to work with Steve Carell, who plays bestselling author turned college professor Greg. He says that his favorite scene with Carell so far is one that occurs in Episode 7.
“When I list the transgressions that I’ve come up with so far, and then Steve fills it in,” McGinley said. “The syncopation of it is so perfect and the way it’s shot with the dueling singles — that’s a perfect example of [Lawrence’s] musicality. On the day it felt so rhythmic. And then that cut together was just genius.”
With Rooster being released during the same timeframe as the Scrubs revival, McGinley had the rare opportunity to revisit an iconic character while building a completely new one from scratch. And both are at the center of the Bill Lawrence multiverse. I asked McGinley what he thought would happen if Dr. Cox and President Mann ever encountered each other in Mann’s famous backyard hot house.
“I don’t think Walt would bring Dr. Cox into the hot house. Those are not birds of a feather,” McGinley said. “I don’t think they would get along. I don’t think Walt would put up with that kind of nonsense. And Dr. Cox would no sooner waste his time in a hot house than miss an opportunity to have a bourbon. I don’t think Walt would allow him on the property.”
Rooster airs Sundays at 10pm ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.
Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He’s spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton
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