Meet Charly Clive, the Breakout Star of HBO's Rooster, Who Loves Vintage Shopping
English actress and comedian Charly Clive nearly took a break from acting, when she landed the gig of a lifetime: a starring role opposite her comedy hero Steve Carell in the new HBO series Rooster. "It was good timing," she laughs. Understatement of the year. In its first few days of streaming, Rooster became HBO's most-watched comedy series debut in over a decade.
Creators Bill Lawrence (Ted Lasso and Shrinking) and Matt Tarses’s Rooster centers on the complicated relationship between a best-selling novelist and his art history professor daughter. When Greg Russo (Carell) arrives on the Ludlow College campus to visit his daughter Katie (Clive), he finds her life has been upended after her husband, Archie (Phil Dunster), leaves her for a younger woman. With Greg still recovering from his own marriage fallout, an opportunity presents itself to stay in town and help each other regain their footing. This charming Sunday-night comedy is high on laughs, coupled with a lot of heart and truly stellar performances, especially from breakout Clive.
Clive grew up in the UK before moving to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 23, she, along with her comedy writing partner, Ellen Robertson, turned her experience into a sold-out comedy stage show called Britney. That said, Rooster marks Clive's biggest U.S. screen project to date. With Carell's stamp of approval, she beat out a half-dozen actresses for the coveted role of Katie. And not a moment too soon either.
We caught up with Clive, a self-proclaimed vintage enthusiast, to talk about meeting her acting heroes, going toe to toe with Carell, and choosing to go exclusively secondhand for her press tour looks.
Tell me the story about how you got this part.
To me, it feels like a crazy one. I hadn't worked for a couple of years. It had been a bit of a dry spell. We had the pandemic and the slowness of the industry after that. I said to my agent in January of 2024, "I love acting. It's the thing I want to do most in my life. But I'm also a writer. I also do comedy. I have other things I can do. I'm not sure how many more nos I can take. I might need a bit of a break from auditioning." And she was like, "Why don't we give it a year?" And in December 2024, I booked Rooster. It was good timing.
Basically, I got a tape request sent to my inbox, and at the time, it was called "Untitled Steve Carell Project." I was like, Well, Steve is my hero, so anything he does, I would like to be part of. I don't anticipate anyone will ever watch the tape, but I'll give it a go. A month after sending in my tape, I got a call from Bill Lawrence, and he said, "We'd love to see you on a Zoom with Steve. Would you like to do that?" And I said, "Yeah," and he goes, "Great, can you be ready in a couple of hours?" After that, I think we did like four more Zooms until finally we did our last chemistry read, which was actually at my friend's rehearsal dinner. I was supposed to be giving a speech, but I said, "I'm really sorry. I've got this quite important job interview." She made everybody at her rehearsal dinner speak in a low whisper so nobody would interrupt my call.
How do you even prepare for a call with Steve Carell with only a few hours' notice?
My initial reaction was “I got to tidy my room because the Zoom will reveal the background.” I was unprepared at the idea of meeting Steve Carell. When somebody offers you something like that (and this isn't even the role itself, but just the opportunity to get to act with Steve), I said yes before he finished the sentence. Because I just thought, If there's any world in which he could take this away at any opportunity, I don't want to give the option for that. It was about five minutes before the Zoom that my heart really started to race, and I thought, What will this be like? After it ended, I closed my laptop, I took a really deep breath, and I was like, If nothing else, I have just done a scene with Steve Carell. And that might be enough. The process kept going, and I was daring to dream. Then, finally, a couple of months later, I got the call to say that I was gonna be coming to L.A. and doing the show, and it was probably the best call of my life.
Where were you when you got that call?
I was at a Vampire Weekend concert in London. My phone rang, and I saw that it was a California number. I ran outside to take the call, and it was Matt Tarses, and Matt said, "Hey, Charly. I just want to say I'm really, really sorry." I immediately started to cry 'cause I thought I hadn't got the job. And he said, "I'm so sorry that this has taken such a long time, but we'd love to have you on the show if you would like to be part of it." I was like, "Matt, you're so bad at this." It felt like I was on a reality show, and they were trying to get a good TV response of just me alone at a Vampire Weekend concert. I went back inside, and my friends were like, thumbs up, thumbs down, and I gave them the thumbs up, and we had a very good night.
You have two absolute legends, Steve Carell and Connie Britton, playing your on-screen parents. What did getting to work with them mean to you and young Charly?
I love this question so much because you've included Connie, not just Steve, and obviously, Steve is the GOAT. I think Michael Scott was all of our uncles, right? We grew up, and we were like, “We know that guy. We love that guy.” For me, comedy is the love of my life, and, therefore, to work with somebody like Steve, a real legend in the game, was something beyond comprehension. I always thought, I hope I get to meet Steve Carell, but I didn't think one day I would know and love Steve Carell, or that one day, I will have Steve Carell's number if I ever need advice about something.
Connie Britton is a huge icon for me. Interestingly, my dad is a real comedy guy. I got introduced to comedy through my dad. It's nice because my dad and I used to watch The Office together, and my dad is obviously a huge fan of Steve's, and my mum is not super into comedy, but my mum is obsessed with Friday Night Lights. So I worked with my parents' heroes, and they were my parents, which was very exciting. Connie I was excited to meet for a variety of reasons. One, she has the most amazing hair in Hollywood. I've really followed her career. I was first introduced to her in Friday Night Lights, which was my favorite show for years. It was my rewatch show. And then when you look past that, and you see other things that she's done, the full gambit of American Horror Story, Nashville, she's been in the game for such a long time. I was very intimidated to meet her, but as soon as she comes on set, everybody relaxes because she's just a gorgeous, hilarious, Southern woman full of gossip.
The father-daughter relationship between Greg and Katie is the real anchor of the show. What really struck you about their dynamic, and were there any aspects of that particular relationship that felt close to home?
When I got the script, I read it, and I thought, God, I can't wait to watch this show. I couldn't believe I would be in it, but I couldn't wait to watch it because it really reminded me of the rapport I have with my dad in real life. What's lovely about it is that it's very nice and very refreshing to have the male lead be so encouraging of people talking about their feelings. And not just the women in his life. He makes himself the glue of the school. For Katie, she is trying desperately to not feel anything. She just wants the situation to be over, to be dealt with. She wants to go back to being a teacher. She wants to be somebody that people can admire. She wants to be taken seriously. I think that's almost her fatal flaw. She's so desperate to take herself seriously that she can't really appreciate any ridiculousness. That is, until Greg opens that window for her and encourages her to live life fully rather than live life for the approval of others. He's a character capable of immense vulnerability, and she is a character capable of immense grace and revenge. All of those traits combined is a recipe for a very, very interesting relationship. Bill, Matt, and Steve are all dads of adult daughters, and in the writing, you can really see the struggle of how to communicate hard stuff with your kid. How do you tell your daughter, as a father, that you will do anything for her and you want to be the person that she needs most, without being pushy, without trying to force her hands in any way, and without making her feel like a kid? The beauty of the script for me as a daughter was to read it and give my dad a bit of a break and be like, God, it must be really difficult. There's a brilliant Canadian comedian, Katherine Ryan, who said that having a daughter is like giving birth to your high school bully. She can recognize all your weaknesses, and she'll call them out. There's something really true about that. They both want to love each other as much as they possibly can, and they are each other's North Star. And sometimes you have to have really hard conversations with the people that you love. This show is a testament to how much trial and error goes into that, and you can't get it right the first time. And if you did get it right the first time, it wouldn't be a very funny show.
How was it going toe to toe with Steve as a scene partner? Did you get to improvise at all?
The script is absolutely fantastic in its own right. The writers on this show are phenomenal, and if you google any of their names, you'll see that everything that's made you laugh in the past 20 years is a result of their brilliance. I was expecting it to be militantly scripted, but that wasn't the case at all. Every scene that we did, at some point, Bill Lawrence or Matt Tarses or one of our brilliant directors would come in and say, "Okay, let's play around. Now let's try this. I got a few alternative lines for here. Maybe we can change the ending." It felt a little bit like devising a play. It was incredibly collaborative in a way I wasn't expecting and in a way I had to warm up to.
With regard to going toe to toe with Steve, I would say a real privilege I have is that I'm one of the few people who can tell the world that Steve is exactly the man that you want him to be. And as a scene partner, that is exactly the same. He is extremely generous. He's so funny, obviously, that goes without saying, but he really is a lover of comedy. He's never trying to be the one with the funniest line. He wants the scene to be as funny as it can be. So he'll set you up for great stuff, and he will try and make everybody have a moment, or at least an opportunity to try something. In the first couple of weeks of filming, I was coming out of my shell. I was very intimidated. I was really living my dream, but it was quite intense. I was just having imposter syndrome. I was quite worried I was not delivering, and Steve, very gently, and very well timed, was like, "I know you already know this, but I just want you to know, everybody considers this your show as much as anyone else's. If there's anything you want to try, if there's any joke you want to run by me first, if there is anything you want to rehearse, if there is anything you want to surprise us with, that's really exciting. That's really exactly what we're all here to do." And he said, "I know it's really frightening. I know it's daunting. But you're here for a reason." And he was like, "Above all else, we've just got to have fun." Then he changed the subject completely to something else so that neither of us would feel embarrassed about the fact that we'd had quite a vulnerable moment. It really meant a lot.
Katie is such a relatable character. She's going through a complicated divorce. She's not quite over her ex and is being messy about it. I heard that Bill invited all of the actors in to make the characters their own. What did that look like for you and Katie?
Something I was very conscious of is that Katie is going through a huge upheaval. We meet Katie when the rug has been pulled out from under her, and she is scrambling to reclaim dignity in a life that Archie has completely turned upside down. Because of that, I knew that the temptation would be to just make a very angry person rather than a nuanced person. I didn't want her to just be an eye-rolling, naggy person. I wanted her to be somebody capable of more humor, certainly, and also moments that are quieter and conversations that don't come out like arguments. Because sometimes confrontation is really quiet, and the show does that really well. Often in TV shows, it's really tempting to have these really big confrontations, and Rooster has quiet confrontations, loud confrontations, confrontations that feel real. I didn't want Katie to be a stereotype of a jilted woman. I wanted her to be a lot more than that. I wanted her to be a capable teacher, a good friend, a funny person, a complicated ex, and a daughter to an extroverted father when she's quite introverted. I communicated that a lot to Bill and Matt. I said I really don't want Katie to be exclusively the straight man in this. I want to find humor where possible. And they were extremely amenable to that. I've never been on a set before where you say, “I've got a couple of ideas,” and people immediately take out a pen and paper, and they're like, “Okay, great, this is amazing. Let's play.”
That sounds like a dream scenario for an actor.
If we don't go for a second series, I'll be very sad, but I kept quite a good diary while doing the first series because I was like, There's a very good chance I never have an opportunity like this again. I really want to remember all of it. And I'm very glad I did that because it really was like going to a summer camp.
Is there a particular moment that stands out to you from filming, a day that was really fun, or that stands out from the whole shoot?
One thing that really stands out to me is that Annie Mumolo is a huge hero of mine. I admire her so much as a writer, actor, and comedian. She's extraordinary in Bridesmaids. When I saw that she was in the show, I kind of lost my mind. And actually, funnily enough, so did Steve. We were in the makeup chair, and I was like, "Have you seen who's been cast in this?" And he was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it." We were both fan-girling about Annie. I kept saying to Bill, “Please, please, please give me a scene with Annie.” And finally, he wrote a scene for us to do, and I don't know if they can use it because I couldn't keep a straight face. She's the funniest person in the world. I couldn't stop laughing. She subsequently has become a lovely friend, and I would say a mentor to me. We both love baking, specifically baking pies. So whenever one of us bakes a pie, we take a picture and send it to the other one for notes.
What's your best pie?
Thank you for asking. I actually made a pie for Steve, very generously, through a party for the cast and crew when we were nearly finished with filming. I had told him that I loved baking, and he said, "Please bring something." So I made a pie I called the Ludlow Pie, named after the fictional school the show is set in. The colours of Ludlow are blue and white, so I made a blueberry-and-brie pie. It was absolutely delicious.
Can you talk to me about figuring out Katie's style in the show and working with the wardrobe department?
Heidi [Higginbotham] was a dream costume designer. The brief, essentially, was that we want Katie to wear lots of cool suits, and for it to be a dark academia vibe, but not a detective. And that is where my comfort zone is naturally. We had a lot of costume fittings where we would talk about the fact that we didn't want her to wear too much brown, even though brown's quite in and it's fall, but we would like her color palette to be nuanced, but also very basic. And the idea was that maybe as the season progresses, we'd introduce a bit more color to represent Katie's world getting a bit larger and a bit happier again. So it starts with quite a minimal palette, and then as we go through the episodes, it gets a little bit more colorful, a little bit more varied to represent an outlook on life that Katie's opening herself up to.
I was very lucky, because I got very comfortable costumes. Also, it feels like Katie maybe wouldn't want to shop at the same place as her students, but we didn't want it to be exclusively Banana Republic. So we went for a lot of vintage, which I love. Throughout this press tour, I've styled myself with exclusively vintage or secondhand pieces. I told Heidi that I love secondhand stuff and that I'd love to have this be a nod to vintage, and she found some amazing pieces with some classic Celine, but also some Belgium designers; we had some Dries van Noten. And it was very exciting for me because I can see the labels, but the audience can't. It was a real privilege to be dressed by people who really listened when I said, “I think this is what I would like to do.”
Before we part, can you leave us with your go-to vintage spots?
In London, we're really spoiled. I think a lot of people think of Notting Hill when they think of vintage fashion, and I think that's true to a degree. But I'm a real Brick Lane girl. Brick Lane is a slightly more cheap and cheerful way of vintage shopping. My favorite vintage shop in London is a place called Magpie Vintage. But if you want to get good designer vintage, you've got to go to Antwerp in Belgium. The whole city is the most fashionable place you could ever go.
Catch new episodes of Rooster Sundays on HBO at 10pm EST.
Photographer: Emily Soto
Styling: Self-styled by Charly Clive (wearing vintage Comme des Garçons and shoes are John Lewis)
Hairstylist: Seiji
Makeup artist: Genevieve Herr
