Ted Lasso’s Phil Dunster joins Steve Carell for HBO’s upcoming comedy series from Shrinking and Scrubs creatives

Ted Lasso star Phil Dunster is going from the soccer pitch to a college campus for HBO’s upcoming comedy series, starring Steve Carell. The untitled project hails from Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso, Shrinking), Matt Tarses (Scrubs), and Warner Bros. TV. Details about Dunster’s role as a series regular remains a mystery. Dunster played the hot-headed Striker Jamie Tartt for AFC Richmond in Ted Lasso, a critical darling and feelgood comedy series about a college football coach who heads to London to manage a struggling English Premier League soccer team.

HBO’s untitled comedy series starring Steve Carell and Phil Dunster unfolds on a college campus where an author (Carell) struggles with a complicated relationship with his daughter. Lawrence and Tarses, who teamed-up for the hit medical comedy series Scrubs, wrote the premiere episode. The duo also produces the project alongside Carell, Jeff Ingold, and Liza Katzer through Doozer Productions. The 10-episode show got a series order from HBO in May, giving Lawrence and Tarses ten half-hour chapters to tell their story.

After a crowd-pleasing performance on Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso, Dunster played Mike for seven episodes of Prime Video’s The Devils Hour. The psychological thriller series from Tom Moran stars Jessica Raine, Peter Capaldi, and Nikesh Patel, and centers on a woman who wakes up every night at exactly 3:33 AM, in the middle of the so-called Devil’s Hour between 3 AM and 4 AM. Dunster also features in the second season of Veronica West’s Apple TV+’s psychological drama Surface. The intense thriller stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Oliver Jackson Cohen, and Ari Graynor, and revolves around a woman’s quest to rebuild her life after a suicide attempt.

In addition to his acting roles, Dunster recently made his directorial debut with Idiomatic, a short film he also wrote, produced, and stars in alongside Kerry Godliman. The thought-provoking project tells the story of a man who can see metaphors and it’s ruining his life. The off-beat tone of the piece makes for an insightful commentary on how we interpret the things we see and experience.

Are you curious to learn more about Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses’ untitled comedy series? Will Phil Dunster and Steve Carell light up the screen? We’ll find out when more information about the series comes together.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.