Twenty years after arriving in LA, this Aussie actor is now a regular on primetime TV

It was on a film set in New Orleans where Josh Lawson learnt the genius of the handshake.

It was his first day shooting The Campaign, a 2012 political satire starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, where acclaimed comedy director Jay Roach handed him a small but important role.

Lawson, a NIDA graduate who starred in Home and Away and Sea Patrol before moving to Los Angeles in 2008, is routinely frightened when he arrives on set. Like most comedy actors, he wrestles with fears that he won’t be funny, will try too hard, or be swamped under the sharpness of superior screen partners. The prospect of trading jokes with Ferrell and Galifianakis was petrifying.

“We were shooting a big, crowded scene, and we’re all waiting around, 100 people in this big scene,” recalls Lawson. “I see Will Ferrell, and he’s taller than everybody else, so you really see him, and he’s pushing through the crowd, and he’s coming my way, and I’m thinking ‘oh my god, there’s Will Ferrell, this is the biggest comedy star in the world at the time, and he’s making a beeline straight for me’.

“He comes to me and just goes, ‘Hey Josh, just wanted to say nice to meet you and really looking forward to working with you’.”

It was a small gesture that instantly dampened Lawson’s nerves, which were watered down again that evening after Roach called to congratulate him on his performance that day.

Now more than a decade on, and with a credit in Anchorman 2 to his name, the 43-year-old looks back on Ferrell’s greeting as an understated but astute move, knowing now that the best comedy – and hence, the best film – comes when all the actors are relaxed.

A long way from Home and Away: Josh Lawson in the show set in an Oregon hospital.

“That stuff just goes a long way because then the next day, I’m not as nervous or anxious,” Lawson says. “I look back on some of my earlier stuff, and I’m just embarrassed to see how much I’m pushing, how much I’m desperate for the laugh, just trying so hard.”

Lawson’s new show, St. Denis Medical, follows a group of workers in a struggling Oregon hospital. It has a run-and-gun, guerilla filming style that accentuates its humour through awkward silences and snap zooms in a manner comparable to The Office and Parks and Recreation.

Lawson’s first appearance on screen, where he portrays trauma surgeon Bruce Schweitz, makes light of House, a much more dramatic series based in a hospital.

“If you didn’t reference stuff like that, it just wouldn’t feel authentic because if you were a doctor, a healthcare worker, or a nurse, the immediate comparisons would be House or Scrubs,” Lawson says. “A hospital is a good place to anchor any kind of series, drama or comedy, and then just let the misadventures of the character, and the character, grow.”

Bruce is a colourful character with plenty of idiosyncrasies – he has Samurai swords in his office, an acoustic guitar and a litany of small trophies he’s collected over his life.

Lawson is quick to separate himself from Bruce’s qualities but says the writers did introduce puns and dad jokes for Lawson, humour he “loves doing”.

Lawson plays the egotistical trauma surgeon Dr Bruce Schweitz.

“One of the running jokes is how often Bruce can put his name into jokes, at one point he said, ‘Schweitz, camera, action’, he’s always doing little wordplay, things that I find particularly daggy, and also hopefully endearing,” says Lawson.

“Bruce, at a quick glance, could be really quite unlikeable because of his egotism, but I think he has a really positive energy about him, he’ll say, ‘Nothing to fear, Bruce is here’, and so there is something buoyant about him that makes him acceptable.”

Lawson watched medical documentaries before arriving on set and consulted a handful of surgeon friends about the role, who assured him that the stereotype of trauma surgeons possessing a “robust ego” was true.

Despite being nominated for an Academy Award in 2018 for the live-action short The Eleven O’Clock, which he wrote and starred in, Lawson’s biggest roles have been on the small screen. His quick wit and versatility have turned him into a mainstay on sitcoms such as Superstore, which have abandoned the punchline-driven, laugh-track format in favour of a faster, messier affair.

But with the era of big-screen blockbusters waning, Lawson faces an uncertainty in Hollywood he’s never quite confronted before. He’s also arrived at an awkward age, where showrunners deem him too old to play a young lead but doubt his plausibility as a parent.

Josh Lawson (right) with James Marsden in Anchorman 2.

“In my 20s, I used to want to do this and do that, now I just want a job,” says Lawson. “I do worry that you become more irrelevant the older you get, and you’re more out of touch … I’m not a purist; I just want to make sure that I’m aware of the change and that I can adapt as well. In your 20s it’s exciting; in your 40s it’s scary.”

Lawson’s near-term looks steady, with St. Denis Medical renewed for a second season. He looks forward to exploring “other elements of Bruce’s character” and shares an unmistakable wave of relief when the topic of future work is raised.

What lies beyond is less clear. Lawson doesn’t shirk when the prospect of a Home and Away reunion is floated, jokingly suggesting he could play the “brother coming back for revenge”.

Stranger things have happened. Especially in Summer Bay.

St Denis Medical is now streaming on 7Plus.

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