‘Ted Lasso’ star Phil Dunster joins Steve Carell in Bill Lawrence’s HBO comedy

He’s Jamie Tartt. But now he wants to be someone else. 

Phil Dunster, the actor best known for his role as himbo soccer star Jamie Tartt on “Ted Lasso,” is reuniting with “Ted Lasso” co-creator Bill Lawrence on Lawrence and Matt Tarses’ upcoming HBO comedy series, Deadline reports. 

Steve Carell stars in the as-yet-untitled series, which is described as a comedy set on a college campus that follows an author’s (Carell) complicated relationship with his daughter (not yet announced). Dunster’s role is being kept under wraps for now. 

Dunster was nominated for the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 2023 for his performance on “Ted Lasso.” Up next, Dunster will appear in Season 2 of Apple TV+’s psychological thriller series “Surface.” He’s also appeared in Prime Video’s “The Devil’s Hour” and “Catastrophe,” HBO’s “Catherine the Great,” and the film “Murder on the Orient Express.” He recently made his directorial debut with the short film “Idiomatic,” which he wrote, directed, and starred in with Kerry Godliman. 

The premiere episode of the upcoming series is written by Lawrence and Tarses, who previously worked together on “Scrubs” and Apple TV+’s recent comedy series “Bad Monkey.” Lawrence and Tarses also executive produce alongside Carell, Jeff Ingold and Liza Katzer of Lawrence’s Doozer Productions. Warner Bros. Television is the studio behind the show, which received a 10-episode straight-to-series order in May. 

The show’s writers’ room opened in October. Filming is expected to start in January. In an interview with Deadline last month, Lawrence talked about the inspiration for the series, and said the main character is very loosely based on author Carl Hiaasen. “Steve Carell is such an inspiring comedic guy to me,” Lawrence said. “For what I do, someone has to be able to be funny and goofy and silly and then turn on a dime, and he used to do that in ‘The Office.’ That was a ludicrous character that would still make me sometimes well up at the end,” Lawrence said. “So super duper excited and definitely feeling both the pressure and the opportunity at HBO, because for writers like me, it was always the gold standard type channel. And I’m well aware that Curb’s gone and Barry’s gone, their wheelhouse comedies are not around.”