Interview: Charly Clive on the Chemistry of Comedy and Generosity of Steve Carell in ‘Rooster’
The HBO Sunday night comedy slot is one of great value, usually punctuated by a freshman series or a returning comedy that already has its fans. One of the new additions this spring to the HBO Sunday night lineup was Rooster, a series about a father-daughter duo working together on a college campus while Katie (Charly Clive) is trying to figure out her personal life. She’s recently been cheated on, and the entire campus knows – she can literally stop students on the quad to confirm this. She’s a woman whose frustration with her current state of affairs is aided by the presence of her father, Greg (Steve Carell), a man still trying to figure himself out but always there for his daughter.
Clive, who can previously be seen in multiple short films and The Lazarus Project, feels like a natural fit as Carell’s daughter. The best scenes of the show are when Clive and Carell share the screen together, as they’ve crafted an exquisite bond that feels natural.
I sat down and spoke to Clive about the audition process for Rooster, the turning point for Katie, what it’s like to play Steve Carell’s daughter, and what she would teach in the world of academia.
Tyler Doster: Steve Carell has said that he instantly knew you were the one to play Katie, so I wanted to ask you about the audition process and what it was like.
Charly Clive: By the way, that’s the nicest thing in the world hearing that quoted back at me. The audition process was quite long. I didn’t know at all. He might have known initially that it was me, but I didn’t know for months. I did a Zoom … Actually, I sent off a tape. The first thing that happened was I sent a tape off, and I never ever expect to hear anything back from tapes in America. It feels a bit like you have a nice time making the tape, and then you send it off into the universe to disintegrate into the stars. Miraculously, we did hear back on this one and Bill Lawrence was like, “We’d love to see you on Zoom. We’d like to see you on camera reacting in real time.” And I was really excited by the prospect of that. Then he was like, “And so we just need to work out when Steve is free.” And it didn’t occur to me until then that I would be doing a Zoom with Steve Carell.
So that was immediately very daunting until we got into the Zoom room itself, and then it became immediately quite clear that Steve’s main objective was to make my audition experience as easy as possible. And he didn’t say that, but he didn’t need to. It was very much my time. He was very, very patient with me. He was really sweet, very funny of course, and thank God. And everybody was really nice. I left it thinking at the very least I’ve done a scene with Steve Carell. Even if I never meet the man in real life, not many people can say that. And then we did a few more Zooms, and we went through a few more rounds and I spoke to Bill on the phone a few times. I was feeling very excited about the prospect of doing the show, but I still didn’t really know if it was in the… I had no idea what other Zooms were going on, and I didn’t really want to know.
I was in a nice happy bubble of believing that it could be mine. And then everything went quiet for a few weeks. So you just assume you’re going to get an email that says, “Sorry, but no.” And then I got a phone call saying, “Get on a plane.”
TD: What were those conversations with Bill like when you were through the interview process? Was he filling you in on more character details?
CC: Yeah, he is such a straight shooter in a way that I love. I think particularly being English, somebody telling you what they mean, heaven, because we don’t really do that here. And so he didn’t send me through a maze of dialogue before he told me what it was that he wanted. He was very, very open, honest, really keen for me to ask questions, but he was also like, “I want to get you across the line. This is how we do that.” And he was like, “The chemistry is everything. It’s all about the relationship, but that doesn’t mean that you have to treat the script as a Bible, play around with it, Steve will play around with it, find where it feels good to not necessarily improv, but put your own spin on things and enjoy. It doesn’t have to be rapid fire. You guys can leave pauses.”
And it felt like a rehearsal. It felt like a workshop, which was really nice because on a Zoom particularly, it feels really difficult to be a real actor in a space because you are in your room begging the wifi to cooperate, and you don’t know what your eye line is. And so this was fun because we got to do it a bunch of times, and then in between auditions, Bill would call me. And one time he called me, and he was like, “I just want you to know my wife is an actress, and she told me I just need to be as honest as possible. I know the rehearsal process. I know the audition process is long, but there’s a reason for it, and there’s a method to the madness, and we really appreciate your patience, and we know that this is hard.”
And it was really nice because you don’t really hear people say, “We know that this is hard,” often if you’re an actor who has been unemployed for a few years as I was let alone from a showrunner and creator like Bill Lawrence. You hear it from casting directors, and you hear it from your own agent, but you don’t hear it from Bill Lawrence.
So for Bill to go, “Listen, we know that we’re putting you through it,” was incredibly generous and also gave me a real boost in confidence that I wasn’t just a number on a page of people, that I was being taken seriously, which is hard to come by.
TD: That sounds like a really uplifting process.
CC: Yeah, it was great. It was hard to believe it was happening.
TD: What were your first impressions of Katie, and how did that evolve as you got to know her over the season, both reading as her and playing her?
CC: So my first impression of Katie was she’s very clever. She’s obviously very clever. We know that just from the facts of the script, given her job, given the way that she speaks and the people in her life. And because of that, I found it really difficult to understand how she could have married this man. My first impression was, “Girl, what have you done?” And then I found out Phil Dunster was playing the role, and I was like, “Well, it makes a little more sense.” I mean, obviously he’s gorgeous, he’s charming, he’s English. How could you not?
And I didn’t go to university myself, so I’ve not had that bubble experience where you’re in an institution and you’re only socializing with people in that world. And then as soon as you get on set and we’re in the campus world, we’re on the studio lot where they’ve built these beautiful interiors, and when we’re on campuses doing the exteriors, you do get a feel of what it’s like being in these places. Understandably, there’s a small pool of people that you’re going to be able to pick from, and somebody like Archie shining a light on Katie must feel very special because she doesn’t have as much self-confidence as she should.
And I immediately loved Katie. I immediately was like, “God, I wish I would be friends. I wonder if Katie would like Charlie.” I think she might think that Charlie was a bit vapid or not… I wonder if I could keep up with Katie. And then when we started doing script work and we were in the read throughs and then we started doing it, I was like, “Oh my God, of course I can keep up with Katie. I’m saying these words, and they’re feeling like words I would say, except for in a different accent.” And then I became fiercely loyal to Katie, and I loved all the student stuff before Katie. I was like, “Oh, my God, sign me up.” But of course Katie has to roll her eyes at it. So the hard thing about playing Katie was I, as an actor and a fan of the show Rooster, love Katie, but Katie doesn’t love herself the way that we love her necessarily.
So it’s playing a character I really admire through the lens of that character, and she doesn’t really admire herself. At least she doesn’t for a while. And then at the end we see this gorgeous woman coming into her power, but it takes a while.
TD: Yeah, after those first few episodes I think the turning point for me watching it was when she had that conversation with the “other woman” in the lunchroom.
That was very much for me, okay, she’s starting to give other possibilities a chance. She’s starting to be maybe a little optimistic for herself.
CC: I think that’s a really good observation. You’re right. I do think she humanizes the enemy in that moment, which is you can either take the higher ground or you can be really petty, and she goes high. You’re right.
TD: And it’s surprising in that moment. She thinks about not doing that for just a second. So obviously you’ve spoken already about the audition process and working with Steve, but how was it to work with him once you got the part on the show and creating that chemistry? Because like you’ve said before, the father-daughter bond here is at the forefront.
CC: It’s really nice being on the other side of filming it answering questions like this because at the time when people would say, “What’s it like working with Steve?” obviously I was just so even starstruck. It was just meeting somebody like a huge hero of mine, and you put them on a real pedestal. I was worried that my expectations would be too high. And so during it, I was like, “I don’t know if I’m wearing rose tinted glasses or if this is real.” And in hindsight, I can say with absolute certainty that Steve is exactly who you hope he’s going to be. He more than lives up to the pedestal.
I’m very lucky because he’s made me laugh, of course. I’ve been at the receiving end of him being extremely funny, but I’ve also been at the receiving end of him being extremely kind, and you really hope that your number one is going to do that and that your leading man is going to be that and set that tone. And Steve did that from the off in a way that was so surreptitious. He’s very calm, grounding presence. He doesn’t feel like a hugely famous person. He feels like a guy who really wants to make sure that you’re comfortable. He’s a real gentleman, which is really nice, and he’s very funny, but because he’s such a kind person, sometimes you really get the giggles because you forget that he’s so funny given that his natural state is just really like a nice guy who’s like, “How was your day?” And then you’re in fits of laughter, and you’re like, “Oh, my God, that’s Steve Carell. That normal nice guy is Steve Carell.
TD: It drops you back into what you’re actually doing.
CC: He’s fabulous, and he’s a real motivator without ever giving you a speech. He’s a big laugh. What I would say is he’s very generous in his laughter, which makes you as his scene partner feel really confident. Because if you can make Steve Carell laugh, then you must be doing something right. And he’s a great leader, and he would be very embarrassed to hear himself being described as a leader, which I think maybe is what the secret sauce is.
I think the people who’ve been thrust in positions of power because they are the best ones for the job are the ones who were like, “Oh, God, not me.” And that’s Steve.
He’s great, and he’s a tight hang. He’s really fun.
TD: We’ve talked about it a little bit, but how did you approach Katie’s balance of frustration with the world around her because of the situation she’s been put in with the optimism that it actually might get better?
CC: I think that Katie is… The great thing about this role for me was it is a coming of age story slightly later in life. I mean, actually all of the characters are doing that, but Katie is living a teen experience, but she’s not allowed to have the teen reactions to it. She’s having her heart broken probably for the first time in a really big way and very publicly like you would if you were in high school and everyone knows who’s dating who. People are looking at her. She’s under a microscope. She’s in a fishbowl, that’s how she describes it, but she can’t have big reactions until she can. Greg being there allows her to slightly regress into this teenage version of herself where her dad would come to the rescue, and that starts with her burning down a house, which is insane and really fun because when you have a character who doesn’t want to be seen burning down a house, you get to play in the discomfort, which is really nice.
And then that discomfort becomes owning what she’s done, which becomes her being defensive, which becomes her becoming quietly proud of herself, which becomes her figuring her way out into realizing that she can be a phoenix from the ashes. But all of that, because it’s a comedy, happens in a really beautifully uncomfortable way. And I really related to Katie. She’s very stubborn. She doesn’t really want to ask for help. She’s trying to problem solve. And in doing so, she creates more problems, which is also something that’s a family trait. Greg does that constantly. Greg is really good at trying to be like, “Hey, it could be worse, and let’s put a smile on our faces.”
And Katie’s like, “Well, it could be better.” She’s coming at it from a quite pessimistic point of view. He’s quite optimistic. And at various points, that clash becomes a way that they can really help each other. And getting to know Katie means that you get to really know Greg, and I think that we could play off each other in that way, and that helped me understand Katie seeing Greg’s reaction to things that she was doing.
TD: Do you think that comedy makes the hard truths easier to swallow?
CC: I was told once that comedy is tragedy with a punchline, and I really like that. I think there’s something about comedy, it pulls the rug from you. You think something’s really funny, and then suddenly it’s not until you’re allowed to laugh again. Comedy I think is a bit like horror. You are bracing yourself for the next laugh, so everything in between has to really earn itself. And in that respect, I think comedy… Well, I love comedy. I come from a comedy background. Predominantly I do comedy in England, and I love it so much. And I think that comedy lets us talk about… It lets us say the quiet thing loudly and then slip on a banana peel, and that’s quite great. And also I think it’s childish. There’s something really beautifully childish about laughing and making other people laugh.
It becomes something that you try and seek out. And when characters are doing that accidentally, that’s even more fun to play with.
TD: If you were to create and teach your own college course, what would be the title of that course?
CC: Honestly, I think I could really competently and enthusiastically teach a course on the films of Steve Martin, and it would be a film studies class, but specifically on the films of Steve Martin when he was working with Carl Reiner. And if I ever needed a guest lecturer to come in, I would ask Steve Carell because he’s also an expert in that field.
Charly Clive is Emmy-eligible in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Rooster.
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