Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 41 - Bill Lawrence (Scrubs / Ted Lasso / Shrinking / Bad Monkey / Rooster)

Today I’m letting Bill Lawrence talk. I first interviewed Bill because of his ties to my area: he’s an alumnus of the College of William & Mary, which provided me with a local angle and an excuse to talk to him for The Virginian-Pilot. Or was the first time for PortFolio Weekly? Either way, I’ve known Bill Lawrence for quite some time at this point, and yet despite that, it somehow always surprises me that he still remembers me. But he does, in fact, remember me, and when I shot him a line on Facebook a few months back and suggested that he should do this podcast, he promptly wrote back and said, “Will, I’d be a bad guy if I didn’t.” The thing is, Bill Lawrence is a very busy man. But if you watch much TV, then you probably already knew that. You know him from SCRUBS, of course, but lately you might also know him for TED LASSO. Or perhaps SHRINKING. Or most recently for HBO’s ROOSTER. He’s also executive producer of BAD MONKEY. So as you might imagine, just because Bill’s willing to do your podcast doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily available to do your podcast. And when one of the reasons why he’s not available is because he’s busy directing the first episode of the next season of SHRINKING, then by God, you can accept that. And when you find yourself waiting for him to pop on the line for the interview and you discover that he’s still in the writers room and that he’s got a call scheduled for as soon as your interview is over, you start wondering if maybe this interview isn’t actually going to happen today after all. And that’s when Bill pops onto the Zoom call, and he’s ready and willing to talk up everything he’s got in the pipeline at the moment, things he’s done in the past that you might remember fondly, and he even offers up a George Clooney story that a) he realizes he’s never actually told before, and b) tells you that it makes him happy that he was able to tell it to you. So, yeah, long story short, Bill Lawrence is a pretty swell guy. And when you listen to this conversation, you’d never guess that it’d been years since the last time we actually talked, because he’s one of the best talkers in the business. Okay, that’s enough of an intro. It’s time to let Bill Lawrence talk.