William Van Duzer Lawrence IV is an American Award winning producer, screenwriter, director, actor, voice-actor, and creator of the Apple TV+ series, Ted Lasso.
Lawrence co-created the Emmy-winning Apple TV+ soccer dramedy with Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly and star Jason Sudeikis. The show inspired by a series of silly Premier League promos on NBC Sports would ultimately become a smash hit and it surprised everyone. “It was just cool to be working on something optimistic and hopeful,” says Lawrence, “because we all needed that shit in our actual lives."
History[]
Bill Lawrence is the creator of the series Scrubs and co-creator of shows including the live-action Cougar Town, Spin City, Ground Floor, Ted Lasso, Shrinking, and the animated series Clone High, in which he also voiced the leader of the shadowy figures. He has written for many other shows, including The Nanny and Boy Meets World.
Like his fellow co-creator, Joe Kelly, Lawrence is an alumnus of several other popular comedies, particularly Scrubs and Cougar Town. His time on Scrubs was critically well received, garnering he and his team two Primetime Emmy nominations for Best Writing in a Comedy Series.
The name of Lawrence's production company, Doozer, is a wordplay on his middle name.
Lawrence co-created the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, which premiered in 2020 and has gone on to win two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2022, Lawrence signed a new five-year overall deal with Warner Bros. Television Group through 2028.
Ted Lasso[]
The first “Ted Lasso” commercial came out on 2013. The character was created for a fictional short film for NBC Sports when it was starting to show the Premier League in the United States. In the video, Sudeikis plays the American football coach hired to be the new head coach of the Tottenham Hotspurs soccer team. And just like in the show, he doesn’t know anything about soccer. Basically, it’s a perfect caricature of someone who knows everything about American football but nothing about the football the rest of the globes adores.
In the Apple TV+ series, Sudeikis and co-star Brendan Hunt make coaches Lasso and Beard examples of good, healthy leadership in sports. They also encourage the AFC Richmond players (a fictional team) to be better people, not just better players. Hunt also co-starred in the original commercials. Not long after, Bill Lawrence was the one who told the actors Ted Lasso could be a TV show.
Nobody Wanted Ted Lasso[]
Nobody, except Apple TV+ series, according to Bill Lawrence. He watched the original sketch comedy and commercials on NBC and thought they were broad and funny. Jason Sudeikis then came to him to pitch the show and told him that he wanted to make a show with the emotional undercurrent of a show like Scrubs. Lawrence agreed and immediately offered them to buyers, but many refused as they would assume it was only a silly sketchy cartoon show.
Both Lawrence and Sudeikis are fans of sports and sports movies and couldn’t wait to play with that format. They were to make their version of a sports movie because how fun will it be to do all the tropes but to examine them. The show has the bad owner who just wants to destroy the team, but instead of just doing that trope they audience would go, ‘Hey, how’d she get there?’ Maybe people would empathize for a bit, according to Lawrence.
The central tenets of Ted Lasso of kindness and optimism are universal. According to Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis brought to this a desire to make this show that’s dedicated to that seminal teacher or coach or relative or friend figure that was a true mentor in every sense of the word, who didn’t look for credit, showed everyone the right way, and inspired everybody.
Two Seasons of Joy[]
Lawrence decided to let go the reign in season three although he is still technically the showrunner and creator. He doesn't get involved with many behind the scenes, writing, and production. According to him, Ted Lasso is Jason Sudeikis' child, so he decided to stepped back and right now is busy with another comedy series "Shrinking" starring Harrison Ford and Jason Seigel, and let the titular main cast to handle the series.
All in all, Lawrence seems at peace with his decision, saying:
"It was healthy for me to let go because Jason [Sudeikis] is Ted Lasso and certainly deserves, especially landing the plane, for it to be his vision... And he has, without a doubt, earned that with this show. So, it didn't sting as much as I thought it would, but that's also partly because I think he crushed it."
External link[]
- Bill Lawrence at IMDb
- Bill Lawrence at the Scrubs Wiki