'Scrubs' and 'Garden State' Star Zach Braff

DATE October 4, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff discuss their sitcom,
"Scrubs"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily
News, sitting in for Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of theme song for "Scrubs")

Unidentified Man #1: (Singing) I can't do this all on my own. No, I know I'm
now Superman. I'm no Superman

BIANCULLI: A lot of what happens in hospital corridors is no laughing matter,
but the team responsible for NBC's "Scrubs" has been working hard for several
years now to change all that. We'll talk with two of them today, Zach Braff,
who stars in the show, and Bill Lawrence, who created it. Zach Braff stars as
J.D. Dorian who was a first-year resident as the series began, but who now has
made it all the way to chief resident. Well, co-chief resident anyway. Braff
has been acting since his teens and got his first big break playing Woody
Allen's son in "Manhattan Murder Mystery." As a writer-director, Braff got an
even bigger break earlier this year. "Garden State," the film in which he not
only stars but wrote and directed, got a rave reception at Sundance followed
by an equally enthusiastic set of reviews when it was released this summer.

Bill Lawrence was on the writing staff of "Friends" then co-created the
sitcom "Spin City" with Gary David Goldberg. He created "Scrubs" in 2001
when it was hailed as the first new NBC sitcom since "Friends" to bring any
quality to Thursday nights.

In addition to Zach Braff as J.D., the ensemble cast of characters in "Scrubs"
includes Donald Faison as Turk, J.D.'s fellow resident and best friend; Sarah
Chalke as Elliot, J.D.'s former lover and current co-chief resident; and John
C. McGinley as Dr. Cox, the hospital's authority figure who speaks very fast
and very meanly to all the residents. Here's a scene from a recent show in
which J.D., seeking help in inspiring the new first-year residents under his
wing, makes the mistake of asking the dreaded Dr. Cox to give them a pep talk.

(Soundbite of "Scrubs")

Mr. ZACH BRAFF: (As J.D. Dorian) Oh, Dr. Cox, can I ask you something?

Mr. JOHN C. McGINLEY: (As Dr. Perry Cox) The answer is, `Yes, it was me who
saw you doing leg lifts in the gym on that inflatable ball. It was quite the
display of girl power. Absolutely loved the leg warmers.'

Mr. BRAFF: (As J.D. Dorian) First of all, they were just big socks, OK. And
secondly, if you need to do some laundry, here's the washboard right...

Mr. McGINLEY (As Dr. Perry Cox) What do you want?

Mr. BRAFF: (As J.D. Dorian) As co-chief resident, I've noticed that some of
my residents are a little overwhelmed, and I think it would be nice if you
gave them one of your patented pep talks, you know.

Mr. McGINLEY: (As Dr. Perry Cox) I'd be more than glad to give your residents
a little pep talk.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. McGINLEY: (As Dr. Perry Cox) Each and every one of you is going to kill a
patient. At some point during your residency, you will screw up, they will
die, and it will be burned into your conscience forever. Hell, take pee pants
here.

Mr. JOHNNY KASTL: (As Dr. Doug Murphy) Pee pants?

Mr. McGINLEY: (As Dr. Perry Cox) He just might go ahead and get himself a
good clean kill this morning seeing as his patient, Ms. Sampson(ph), is in
DKA, and he hasn't been tracking her phosphate level, her phosphate level, her
phosphate level.

Mr. BRAFF: (As J.D. Dorian) Doug, stop writing and go.

Mr. McGINLEY: (As Dr. Perry Cox) That young man has killed so many patients,
I'm starting to think he just might be a government operative. The point is,
the harder you study, the longer you just might be able to hold off that first
kill. Other than that, I guess, cross your fingers and hope that the guy you
murder is a jackass with no family. Great to see you kids. All the best.

Mr. BRAFF: (As J.D. Dorian) Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Cox.

BIANCULLI: Zach Braff, Bill Lawrence, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Mr. BRAFF: Oh, thanks for having us, man.

Mr. BILL LAWRENCE (Creator, "Scrubs"): Thank you.

BIANCULLI: My first question is to Bill, even though Zach is sitting right
there. Why did you cast him in "Scrubs?"

Mr. LAWRENCE: Oh, a couple of reasons. First of all, Zach is--I mean, the
easy one, for anybody who'd seen the show or seen his movie, "Garden State,"
in your theaters now--no--is that he has remarkable...

BIANCULLI: We'll get to that. Settle down. We're like 30 seconds in.

Mr. LAWRENCE: I know.

Mr. BRAFF: Why thanks, Bill. Right off the top.

Mr. LAWRENCE: That's weird. No, Zach is a ridiculously talented actor. And
one of the things I was trying to do with the show "Scrubs" was try to find a
way to, in a show, have it cover both dramatic elements and big broad silly
comedy. And Zach was an actor that had the ability to make the transition
between the two very quickly and still have, you know, the audience believe
it. And besides that, I'm a huge fan of physical comedy, and one of the
things that I saw early on in Zach that we were really excited to do is that
he has, you know, the same physicality that John Ritter had in his ability to
turn jokes and pratfalls and make them look truly out of the ordinary. I
mean, I'm a lucky guy that the two male leads that I worked with so far on my
television shows were Mike Fox and Zach Braff, and I think they're two of, you
know, the best television physical comedians out there.

And the other reason I was really interested in Zach was the character on the
show early on on "Scrubs" is playing, you know, a young resident at his first
day of work at a hospital and how he's in completely over his head and has all
this responsibility. And I thought that a really cool metaphor for that was
hiring an actor that didn't have a whole lot of credits and were basically
going through the same thing in their real life, which is to be expected to
carry an ensemble show from the outset, you know, having never really had this
big break before. And one of the things I think was cool was that, you know,
Zach's, you know, vulnerability and, you know, in turn, the empathy we felt
for him as an audience showed through in his early performances, partly
because of his talent, and partly because he was going through the same
experience in real life.

BIANCULLI: Now were you so convinced of and aware of his talent when you were
casting the program that you didn't bother to make him audition?

Mr. LAWRENCE: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Zach--the--we did cheat, though,
because--I tell you one thing. I almost missed Zach Braff, which would have
been a huge mistake for the show, because he was living in New York, and the
only thing that I, you know, had at my avail was him on tape doing his
audition.

Mr. BRAFF: A bad audition.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Yeah, and I don't even think I saw it at first, because they
send you a hundred tapes from New York, but, you know, that's really hard to
measure up against all the people that are just in front of you. But then
luckily, we took another look at it. We flew him out, and the audition
process in television is maddening, because you don't truly get to make the
choice. You know, you're supposed to bring in three or four people for--you
know, network executives who, I think, if we were honest for a second, are
really the people that should be judging who is and who isn't funny. They get
to basically ultimately make the final decision, so the only thing we could do
to stack the deck is, you know--Zach was my first choice after we went through
the audition process, and the two of us did a lot of extra work on working
jokes and coming up with, you know, little physical moments and stuff that we
felt the other people might not have so that Zach could hopefully defeat the
system which is, I think, geared towards picking the middle-of-the-road,
unsurprising, unexciting person rather than, you know, the new face.

BIANCULLI: And, Zach, what do you remember about the audition process once
you got to LA and got in front of those executives?

Mr. BRAFF: I was very, very nervous. I actually auditioned a total of six
times for "Scrubs." The first time was this time where I was put on tape, and
I didn't think I did a very good job at all. And when I got out to LA, I was
able to work with Bill, and it got better. And I think, you know, the process
of auditioning for a comedic pilot is so grueling, because you walk into this
room, and pretty much every time I've ever done it, nobody laughs. This was
the first time where Bill was really helpful and, you know, really went out of
his way to make me and the other people auditioning feel comfortable before we
were supposed to go into this really funny scene. And then people in the room
were genuinely laughing, which is helpful, because, you know, I've gone to
these auditions where you're going these scenes, and they're supposed to be
really funny, and no one says a--makes a sound. So, you know...

BIANCULLI: That must be brutal.

Mr. BRAFF: It was. It's terrifying.

Mr. LAWRENCE: It's a horrifying experience to be assessed.

Mr. BRAFF: I mean, it really is. It's like the Olympics in a way, 'cause you
can--you know, I went in six times, and you can go in five times and really do
an amazing job, but on the final audition, in front of the network, which is,
you know, 35 people in a very small room, if you don't really land it and do
it right that time, then it doesn't really matter.

BIANCULLI: Talk about the inspiration for "Scrubs."

Mr. LAWRENCE: You know what? The greatest thing about this show is--"Spin
City"--when I created "Spin City," I knew nothing about that world at all.
And really, we were just doing a traditional multicamera sitcom. And the best
thing about this show and the reason I was somewhat protective of it is--it's
hard for people to believe, but it was truly real. We--my best friend from
college, his name is J.D., and is now a cardiologist in the Los Angeles area
and the medical adviser on the show. He and two other of my buddies went to
med school. And I think everybody has a group of friends that your frame of
reference is when you were a teen-ager, so when you think of these people and
you see them, you regress, you know. And my last memory of J.D. is of a guy,
you know, with an empty 12-pack of beer on his head. And now--I always used
to joke that my worst nightmare in the world as a young 23-year-old would be
to wake up in an emergency room and see J.D. over me going, `You're going to
be fine. Don't even worry about it.'

But as I was sitting with these guys and, you know, just basically drinking a
beer and talking, the one through line they all had was how horrifying their
internship and residency were, and each one of them just said to me, you know,
everybody can imagine that job they had, that first day of work and how scared
you were and how you felt like you were going to fail and that everybody was
judging you. And they said, `Add to that that you're suddenly responsible for
the well-being of other human beings and whether or not they're going to live
and die, and you would not believe, you know, how all encompassing and how
incredibly horrifying an experience it is.' And just that, to me, stuck
something in my head that it would be an amazing TV show. And I've actually
been able to, just through those two guys and actually a girl--which will be a
title for another TV show--there would be...

BIANCULLI: For about a year and a half.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Yeah, exactly. But just through those three and through the
extension of other doctors, we've not done one medical story or even one
medical moment on the show that wasn't handed to us by another physician.
That's the--you know, we've been embraced by the medical community. It's been
one of the best things for us. And a deal that we have out there is that
anytime doctors give us stories, you know, we end up naming characters after
them and promising not to use real names of patients or anything like that.
But, I mean, as a result of this show, you know, the real J.D. was the keynote
speaker at Brown's Med School graduation. I was--I spoke at USC's Med School
graduation. Doctors are the most supportive group that we have, but, yeah,
all that stuff's real.

And to me, once I talk to all these doctors as far as how the show came to be,
I knew right away that it wouldn't be hard coming up with the funny stuff.
And not only did I think that it would be a great TV show, but to me, it made
doctors seem very human. And on television, that's not something that--in the
dramas, people don't really do that, I don't think. I think they make them
seem so bigger-than-life and so heroic, and all my friends that are doctors
are still goofy, funny guys just trying to get through the day.

BIANCULLI: My guests are Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence of the NBC sitcom
"Scrubs." More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to our conversation with Zach Braff, the star of
NBC's medical sitcom "Scrubs," and Bill Lawrence, who created the show.

It's such a complicated program, and the jokes are so rapid and multilayered,
and there are so many fantasy sequences, and there is no laugh track, and
there are so many supporting characters who get some of the best lines, if
this was all that way from the beginning, how did you sell it to the network
to even get to make it?

Mr. LAWRENCE: This is one of those things, to tell you the truth, that the
system worked for me, and it rarely does out here, because I wrote this pilot.
You know, it's one of the only TV shows on NBC that's completely owned by ABC,
in fact, the only one, because I wrote the show for ABC television and got
exactly the notes, David, you would expect to get, which was, `How can we do
this as a sitcom?' and, you know, `There's too many characters,' and, you
know, `What if we just make this big scary doctor and the kid, you know, they
end up living together,' and I had basically just had my first child with my
wife, and so I was, you know, in a position that I was able to say, `Hey, you
know what? No big deal. If you guys aren't that interested in it, I'm not
really that interested in changing it. I'm just going to ride this out.'

And it sat around for about a year and a half, and two people actually
championed--the guys, Steve McPherson, who's now the president of ABC, ran the
studio at the time, and a guy named Garth Ancier who used to run NBC. I
really just escaped the system, because what happened was Steve was able to
convince ABC that my deal was ending and that they might as well let him show
this pilot to other networks. And Garth, I think, was in a place that he was
able to actually champion things he liked.

BIANCULLI: "Scrubs" actually parallels "St. Elsewhere" in its construction in
building it around a first-year resident that then sticks around long enough
to become--you know, get all the way through the program. And I don't know...

Mr. LAWRENCE: Oh, that's just one of the many shows we've stolen from there.
I mean, come on, you could say it's...

Mr. BRAFF: Am I Denzel in that scenario?

Mr. LAWRENCE: Yeah. No. I mean, you know, "St. Elsewhere"...

BIANCULLI: Well, now that you're off making movies, yes, you are Denzel in
that scenario.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Yeah. "Wonder Years."

Mr. BRAFF: I want to be the Jewish Denzel.

Mr. LAWRENCE: I don't know if that's as sexy as you think it is. But, yeah,
without a doubt, "St. Elsewhere" was--"St. Elsewhere," like, aired--I mean,
not aired, but tipped the scales on the other side. I think that was a drama
with elements of comedy, you know, and it was one of my favorite shows of all
time, bar none. But, I mean, I think we really try--you know, the big burden
for us, that you already mentioned, was I didn't want to have a laugh track,
and so we knew going into this that we had to pepper this show with jokes and
fantasies and make it almost non-stop just to keep, you know, the powers that
be from coming down on us. And the number one complaint about single-camera
shows is they aren't funny, and I was just going to do my darnedest to never
make that happen on this show.

BIANCULLI: Zach Braff, can you talk a little bit about what you enjoy about
your co-stars in terms of the performances they bounce back to you?

Mr. BRAFF: Donald--I have to start with Donald Faison who plays Turk. He and
I, we just really became really best friends in real life. He and I spent so
much time together. And I think we just have a really good rapport back and
forth. I love just playing around scenes with him. And, you know, before
every scene, Bill comes and works us through. He makes little changes and
tweaks jokes, and I love doing that with Donald, 'cause he and I have a really
good--you know, we work well together.

And what can I say? Johnny C. McGinley who plays Dr. Cox is--you know, people
always ask me, `What's Johnny C. like?' And I say, `He's pretty much Dr. Cox,
but a little bit nicer. And I emphasize `a little bit'. No, you know, he and
I, again, we've always had great chemistry, and I've learned a lot from him.
He has amazing timing. And I won't go through everybody, but those are who
are in most of my scenes. And then Sarah Chalke who, again, became a really
good friend of mine, and I love, you know, doing scenes with her as well.

Mr. LAWRENCE: One of the other things about Zach with Johnny C. and Sarah and
all those other co-stars, one of the things the cast is nice enough to let me
do on this show is we take things from their personal life and from their
relationships outside the show and, you know, outside work, and we kind of
imbibe their show relationships with that stuff. And Donald and Zach really
are that close, you know. And Johnny C. and Zach kind of do have that, you
know, reluctant-mentor/reluctant-student relationship. And, you know, Sarah
and Zach have definitely, you know, became friends and had, you know,
different experiences with each other along the way. But it's one of the...

BIANCULLI: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's not let that one go
yet.

Mr. BRAFF: You can believe he's not going to stop there.

BIANCULLI: Yeah. No, because the characters...

Mr. BRAFF: Don't worry, it's just local in Pasadena, folks.

BIANCULLI: The characters you see on the program got very, very close to one
another, and then they sort of...

Mr. LAWRENCE: Oh, no. Just one of the rules at our work that I think
everybody is cool with is that there's a no-jerk policy, so everybody is--you
know, we enjoy hanging out with everybody. But the other one amongst the cast
and writing staff is anything funny that happens in your real life is fair
game to be on the show. So everybody knows that if they go through any
personal experience with any of the other cast members or if the writers have
anything that they end up talking about, then it immediately becomes part of
the program.

Mr. BRAFF: Yeah. You'll be sitting at lunch, telling a story. And then the
next week, you'll get a script where your exact story is happening to your
character.

BIANCULLI: That must be comfortable. Well, Bill, how does this explain, say,
the character of Christa Miller?

Mr. LAWRENCE: Well, see, there you go.

Mr. BRAFF: That was a good segue.

Mr. LAWRENCE: It's nice. My wife plays a slightly nicer version of herself
on the show. And, no, you know, I--you know, in some ways, I take--you know,
it's exaggerated, but I take elements of our marriage and just put them right
into her character's mouth. And that--she's on the show for that reason,
because she's really funny, but also because it's the one time a week that I'm
actually allowed to tell her what to do and she pays attention to me. At my
workplace, I get to tell my wife what to wear in the morning. It's fantastic.
`I don't like that skirt. It's a little hippie.' But, no, it's a blast
working with my wife. Just for other aspiring actors and actresses out there,
she has the world's chariest gig, 'cause she basically just wakes up on Monday
morning and says, `I feel like working Thursday.' And then I gather the
writers together, and we write her something funny to do on Thursday.

BIANCULLI: Another couple of questions about what you're trying to do with
the characters and with the program.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Sure.

BIANCULLI: Neil Flynn, who plays the janitor, is he still...

Mr. LAWRENCE: I think that's brilliant.

BIANCULLI: ...just the janitor.

Mr. LAWRENCE: You know, he...

Mr. BRAFF: His name is Janitor.

Mr. LAWRENCE: He's still just Janitor, yeah. Neil Flynn is two things. One,
I--at the beginning of the series, I truly thought there was no way this show
would last more than one season at best, 'cause, you know, I felt that I was
doing everything wrong in terms of what makes a show appeal to the masses, you
know, too many characters moving around too quickly. Is it a comedy? Is it a
drama? And Neil, if the show ended after one year, he was just going to be a
figment of Zach's imagination, of J.D.'s imagination. And unfortunately, when
the show went beyond a year, he had to start interacting with other people,
which is more work. Literally, midway through the second year, we had a scene
with Neil and, I think, Donald, and he's like, `This is the first time I've
talked to somebody else.'

And Neil is brilliant on a couple fronts. He represents, for me, for whatever
reason--it's one of the things that always made me laugh when I was a kid.
Every job I had from the age of 16 to 22 would always start--there would always
be one person that hated me for no reason. And Neil represents all of them.
I remember one, I worked at a kennel, and I was there for two hours, and I
just asked this other guy who, you know, I should have realized that as a
16-year-old that his job was to go clean up poo-poo, but that--I just asked
him if I should make sure that all the dog cages were closed tight for the
night, and he said, `Oh, because I don't even know how to close dog cages,
right, Smart Guy? That's what you're saying, Smart Guy?' And from the moment
on, even though I'm really not a smart guy, I was `Smart Guy' at that
particular job. And so, yeah, we just wanted somebody to be terrorizing J.D.
for no reason.

The other real convenience of Neil Flynn is he's got a huge background in
improv, so one of the great things for us is we pretty much just write an area
for him, and he says what he wants to say.

BIANCULLI: Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff of the NBC sitcom "Scrubs." We'll
continue our conversation in the second half of the show. I'm David
Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #2: (Singing) I could have been a sailor. I could have been
a cook. A real-life lover could have been a book.

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #3: (Singing) Bones sinking like stones all that we fall
for.

BIANCULLI: Coming up, more of our conversation with actor Zach Braff and
executive producer Bill Lawrence of the TV show "Scrubs." And we'll hear
about Braff's new film, "Garden State." Also, we remember actress Janet
Leigh. She died yesterday at the age of 77. She played the woman killed in
the shower in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film "Psycho."

(Soundbite of music)

Unidentified Man #3: (Singing) We live in a beautiful world.
(Unintelligible) sinking like stones, all that we fall for. (Unintelligible)
places we've grown. All of us are done for. We live in a beautiful world.
Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. We live in a beautiful world.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli sitting in for Terry
Gross. Let's continue our talk with Zach Braff, star of the NBC medical
sitcom "Scrubs," and Bill Lawrence, the show's creator and executive producer.

One of the things "Scrubs" does best is allow its characters to surprise one
another and lots of times surprise the viewers. Here's a scene from one of
this year's shows, which features guest star Heather Graham in her recurring
role as Dr. Molly Clock, a psychiatrist. She's talking with staff resident
Elliot, played by Sarah Chalke, and Nurse Carla Espinosa, played by Judy Reyes
when two other residents come by talking about rap music. One is Zach Braff's
J.D. The other is J.D.'s best friend Turk, played by Donald Faison. For the
purposes of this discussion, it's worth noting that J.D., Elliot and Molly are
white. Carla and Turk are black.

(Soundbite of "Scrubs")

Unidentified Man #1: How come what rappers say doesn't make any sense, like
that Snoop Dog-Dr. Dre song? What is, `Still hitting them corners and those
ho-hos girl' mean?

Mr. DONALD RAISON: (As Turk) Many disadvantaged African-Americans have
limited nutritional choices; therefore, they must subsist on HoHo snack cakes.
It's a black thing, bro.

Unidentified Woman #1: Actually, Turk, it's, `Still hitting them corners in
them low low's girls'--low low's, not ho-hos.

Unidentified Woman #2: See, Turk, in the hood, a low low is a Lowrider, or a
car with an adjusted suspension that allows it to bounce up and down.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Unidentified Woman #2: And Dre and Snoop enjoy driving around together in
their Lowriders around the corners or lizzle-rizzles. (Singing) `I'm
representing all them gangsters all across the world still hitting them
corners in them low low's girls.'

Woman #1 and Woman #2: (Singing in unison) `Still taking my time to perfect
the beat, and I still got love for the streets.'

Unidentified Woman #1: Turk, you just got schooled on rap by the two whitest
chicks in America.

Mr. RAISON: None of you can prove it.

BIANCULLI: The interracial relationship between J.D. and Turk on the show is
probably, to me, the most easygoing, convincing and nice one probably since
all the way back to "I Spy."

Mr. LAWRENCE: Oh, it's cool.

BIANCULLI: Do you take it seriously? I mean...

Mr. LAWRENCE: I take it incredibly serious. I was a horrible, horrible
stand-up comic when I was really young. And one of the things I always tried
to talk about was I was a TV kid, and every TV show that I watched in my
childhood--and I'm not that old--whenever there was a black guy and a white
guy hanging out together, it would be a special episode, you know? `Oh, my
God, Jimmy's got a black friend.'

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LAWRENCE: What the hell is going on?

Mr. BRAFF: On a very special "Silver Spoons."

Mr. LAWRENCE: Or they would err on the other side, which is, you know,
there'd be a black friend and a white friend that'd hang out and are really
close but, miraculously, never noticed that the other is black and that the
other is white. And I, you know--hey, I don't want to trump myself up here,
David, but I've had some black friends.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LAWRENCE: No, but, basically, one of the cool things is my buddy
is--that we're comfortable with--and both ways. We would always--one of the
funniest things about those kinds of friendships are just the observations you
get to make about whether or not somebody, you know, slides into a stereotype
or tweaking, you know, the societal things that people say and not shying away
from it and being comfortable enough with a buddy that you can truly talk
about it and shine a light on those things. And it's the aspect of their
relationship that we take the most seriously because we always want to be
funny, but we never want to go over to the other side of, `Oh, now you're just
using the fact that he's black and he's white to make, you know, a kind of
racially edgy joke.' It's more important to us that these guys are so tight
that, you know, they can cross lines and they can say things. And, you know,
to me, it's the way that those relationships should be. But it's--really
flattered that you asked because it's something that we pay so much attention
to in the writers' room, and we think nobody ever notices.

Mr. BRAFF: And I like--and that's true in real life, too. I mean, Donald and
I, as I said, are really good friends, and there's nothing in the world that I
couldn't say in front of me and he me. And there's something refreshing about
that; about a friendship where all the--people who are so PC, especially on
television--two characters that just take that apart. And J.D., who's a
little more naive, asking Turk questions--I mean, in the pilot there was a
thing about him asking about, you know, what he's supposed to do when there's
a rap song on and he's lip-syncing along and the N-word comes up and just sort
of deconstructing things about political correctness. And I think that's
refreshing in a way that you don't see on other TV shows.

Mr. LAWRENCE: And one of the amazing things for us is that Zach and Donald
became so tight in real life that I don't just have to draw off of my
relationships from my past. And, I mean, in fact, there's a show that J.D.
calls--I think he tries to give Turk the new nickname; I think it was
`chocolate bear.'

BIANCULLI: Yeah.

Mr. LAWRENCE: And it was just something that...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LAWRENCE: And Turk, on the show, likes it. And that was something
that--it was a true moment on our show that Zach said it jokingly to Donald,
and Donald was laughing, and I was just observing these two guys that were
buddies. And there wasn't any edge, and there wasn't any, `Oh, my God,' you
know. And it wasn't even something they stopped for. So...

Mr. BRAFF: But we don't recommend you white friends with your black
friends...

Mr. LAWRENCE: Don't try this at home, yes.

Mr. BRAFF: Don't try this at home.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Don't necessarily do it to a stranger either.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: Don't recommend going into work tomorrow and calling your black
friend chocolate bear. But the example is something that, you know, me and
Don--and then he called me vanilla wafer, you know? It was just like a--it
was just sort of us joking around. And then because it was real, it was
something we could put on the show.

BIANCULLI: Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence of the NBC sitcom "Scrubs." Coming
up, Zach Braff on his movie "Garden State." This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's return to our conversation with Zach Braff and Bill
Lawrence. I asked Zach Braff about his film "Garden State" and how long he'd
been working on it.

Mr. BRAFF: I went to film school. I set out to make movies, and when I
graduated, I moved to New York. And I was doing all sorts of odd jobs, and I
started auditioning as well. And that's when I started to get work in theater
and independent film, and that eventually led me out to LA and to audition for
"Scrubs." But my initial intention when I went to school was to be a
filmmaker, so I had made a bunch of short films and had pieces of screenplays.
And what happened was I got cast in "Scrubs," and that day I quit my waiting
tables job. And I was so thrilled and screaming to all my relatives and quit
that night. And they called me the next day and said we weren't going to
start shooting "Scrubs" for four months. So I figured out a way to live on
any of the money I'd saved, and I sat down and really hammered out, `What will
be the first draft of "Garden State"?' in those intervening four months.

BIANCULLI: The music on the soundtrack, I imagine that was an awful lot of
fun to make those choices. Was it?

Mr. BRAFF: It was. I really compiled a CD of music that I really love that
actually does relate to "Scrubs" as well because, on the show, Bill and the
writers are always looking for new music for the show. And I always, like,
try to find new bands, and I have a lot of friends that are musicians. So
it's fun 'cause we--you know, I pitch music ideas to Bill for "Scrubs" as
well. And in writing "Garden State," I had lots of ideas for the music I
wanted in the movie, and I compiled this CD that I gave out when I was
pitching the script around town and said, `And this would be, you know, the
ideal soundtrack.'

BIANCULLI: And did you have to take any off because the rights were too
expensive?

Mr. BRAFF: They were all too expensive at first, but then when we, you know,
showed people, like, Coldplay and Simon and Garfunkel, the scenes in which
they were used, they really responded to it and were generous enough to let us
use their music at, you know, a rate we could afford, which was pretty much
nothing.

BIANCULLI: And in "Garden State," how did you get to cast Natalie Portman and
Ian Holm in particular?

Mr. BRAFF: I sent them a script. We'd never thought they would actually
see--you know, as you're casting something, you start with sort of archetypes.
You say, `OK, someone like Natalie Portman, someone like Ian Holm.' And then
you make long lists of the people that are like them. And we said, `All
right. Well, let's obviously start with Natalie since she's the archetype
we're using.' And to my surprise, she really liked it. She wanted to meet
with me, and we had lunch. And we just clicked, and she said yes.

BIANCULLI: Are you guys still together as a couple?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: So far Bill has me dating two different women I've acted with.
No, Natalie and I are not together. No, we're friends. We're very good
friends.

BIANCULLI: And you and Ian Holm?

Mr. BRAFF: I am dating Ian Holm.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: Great kisser.

BIANCULLI: Zach, are you directing an episode of "Scrubs" right now?

Mr. BRAFF: I'm about to on Monday. It'll be my first directorial shot at
"Scrubs."

Mr. LAWRENCE: We were trying to work some of that stuff out on the way over
here in the car. We're already bickering.

BIANCULLI: And is this something that you wanted to do?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: It's something I've always wanted to do. You know, I joked to
Bill that "Garden State" was my $2 1/2 million audition reel to direct
"Scrubs." I love the show, and I love the humor of it. And I think a lot of
times--you know, we get a new director every week often that'll come and
doesn't know the show as well as we all do. So I think there's times
when--since I totally--I feel like I really understand Bill's sense of humor
and the way that he likes to shoot things, that it would be a good job for me
to try out. And I'm excited to have my first shot at it.

Mr. LAWRENCE: I went overnight from being somewhat annoyed as to how I was
going to get out of this situation of letting Zach direct an episode. And
then I saw his movie, and now, you know--I mean, we're lucky to have the guy.
He's so good, you know. Said it before, nothing is more annoying than how
talented he is. And I...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: For those of you out there, that's the way that Bill Lawrence
gives a compliment to someone.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. BRAFF: That's the Bill Lawrence way.

Mr. LAWRENCE: But, you know, we're lucky to have him, and I'm going to--I'm
hoping that this is a good enough experience for him that he'll do some more
of them.

BIANCULLI: And my last question, which I saved till last only because I'm so
embarrassed by it: It's a--all the care that you guys put into the fantasy
sequences, there was one probably from a couple of seasons ago now. Do you
know which one I'm...

(Soundbite of laughter)

BIANCULLI: I don't even have to...

Mr. BRAFF: Oh, I'm just anticipating that it's going to be one of the odd
ones.

BIANCULLI: It is one of the odd ones. And it was one of the characters--and
I believe, in my memory, it was Turk who was fantasizing about Sarah Chalke's
character in, like, sort of a soft-core porn, nurse's uniform...

Mr. BRAFF: Nurse's outfit, sure.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Sarah, how's it going?

BIANCULLI: ...setup. And I remember this two years later, partly because I
just...

Mr. LAWRENCE: It was hot.

BIANCULLI: It was--for a regular family sitcom, it was like, `Wow, that whole
thing was filmed and shot and performed in a way that I couldn't believe that
you got away with on network TV.' And I figure, `There must be a story
there.'

Mr. LAWRENCE: No. You know what? The only story, truly, David, is that by
working in a creepy, deserted hospital, we've created this environment that
the network people don't want to come and visit us. They--honestly, because
when they drop by, they're just hot and muggy, and no one's ever around. So
we basically just shoot the stuff and try to really approach the line as much
as we can, like we shot some romance scenes or sex scenes with Zach and Sarah
Chalke over the years that I thought were, you know, at least PG-13, if not
R-rated, movie stuff.

Mr. BRAFF: I couldn't believe that some of that got on the air.

Mr. LAWRENCE: I know it. And, basically, we just turned it in at the last
second and said, `This is all we got.'

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LAWRENCE: And they were just nice enough to go with it, you know. And
these things all lend themselves to the stories of me talking to the various
censors and saying, `Oh, it'll be totally tastefully done,' or--in fact, one
of my cherished possessions, David, is they don't--you know, we--language is
always a tough barrier, especially when you're talking about network
television vs. cable because cable--they swear and curse. And then on network
TV you're allowed to say the word `ass,' but we had said it too many times in
one episode. And the censor had sent me a note that I framed on my wall that
she wanted me to not use it six times but to use it three times. So the note
said--listed all the page numbers that the word `ass' was on. And then the
note said, `Please pick your ass.'

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LAWRENCE: And I guarantee you that she had no idea of the comedy of it,
but it's framed on my wall in my office.

(Soundbite of laughter)

BIANCULLI: Well, Bill Lawrence, Zach Braff, thank you for coming to FRESH
AIR.

Mr. LAWRENCE: Hey, thanks for having us, man.

Mr. BRAFF: Thank you.

BIANCULLI: Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence, the star and creator respectively of
the NBC sitcom "Scrubs." Braff's movie "Garden State" is still in theaters.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Profile: Remembering Janet Leigh
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Janet Leigh, who starred in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" as the woman stabbed
to death in the cinema's most-famous shower scene, died yesterday at age 77.
She had suffered from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, for
the past year.

Leigh starred in her first film, "The Romance of Rosy Ridge," at age 19. Her
other films include "Touch of Evil," "The Manchurian Candidate," "Bye Bye
Birdie" and "Houdini" with Tony Curtis, the third of her four husbands. One
of her two children from that marriage is actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

Janet Leigh is best known for her role as Marion in "Psycho." Marion is an
office worker who has stolen some money and is feeling very guilty about it.
Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, has invited her into his parlor for a
sandwich. He's describing his problems with his invalid, seemingly mad
mother. Marion has suggested that he put his mother in an institution.

(Soundbite of "Psycho")

Mr. ANTHONY PERKINS: (As Norman Bates) Have you ever seen the inside of one
of those places? The laughing and the tears and the cruel eyes studying you.
My mother there? But she's harmless. She's as harmless as one of those
stuffed birds.

Ms. JANET LEIGH: (As Marion) I am sorry. I only felt it seems she's hurting
you. I meant well.

Mr. PERKINS: (As Norman Bates) People always mean well. They cluck their
thick tongues and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately--of
course, I've suggested it myself, but I hate to even think about it. She
needs me. It's not as if she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes a
little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?

Ms. LEIGH: (As Marion) Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough. Thank
you.

Mr. PERKINS: (As Norman Bates) `Thank you, Norman.'

Ms. LEIGH: (As Marion) Oh...

BIANCULLI: When Marion is suddenly and brutally attacked in the shower and
killed, the audience is stunned. If the heroine of the movie is dead, what
happens next? That was "Psycho," and Leigh will forever be a part of that
indelible cinematic legacy.

Terry spoke with Janet Leigh in 1999 and asked her about filming that famous
scene from Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic.

TERRY GROSS, host:

Now what kind of knife was Anthony Perkins using?

Ms. LEIGH: A big, long butcher knife. That's all I know.

GROSS: Was it a retracting knife?

Ms. LEIGH: No, no, it didn't retract. It wasn't steel, however. I mean, it
looked like steel, but, believe me, it wasn't--because what people forget is
that we could not show penetration of a weapon. So you could never see, you
know, the knife going in, so you couldn't use a retractable knife. I mean, it
had no purpose. What you saw was you saw the knife go back and lunge forward.
And then you showed the shot of either, you know, the shoulder or the tum or
the thigh or whatever. And you, in your mind, imagined it going in there, but
you--and then you saw it pull back, and then you saw it go again. But you
never saw it enter the body because it was not allowed.

GROSS: Now what did you do, what did you think about, to get that look of
horror on your face when Tony Perkins pulls back the shower curtain and is
there with his knife? Was just being in the moment with Tony Perkins enough,
or did you think of other things beyond that?

Ms. LEIGH: I think that just--it wasn't always Tony Perkins doing that with
the knife, you know. He had different people doing it.

GROSS: With stand-ins?

Ms. LEIGH: Stand-in, somebody--a woman at one point, so that the audience
could never get a fix on the character. I mean, they all had the same clothes
and wig and everything on, but different people were in different shots, so
that the audience could never kind of get a glimmer of who it might be.

GROSS: Oh! You mean so even on screen, we weren't always seeing Tony
Perkins.

Ms. LEIGH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

GROSS: Oh.

Ms. LEIGH: Oh, absolutely. He wasn't even there. He was in New York
rehearsing a play, I think. And...

GROSS: That's very sneaky.

Ms. LEIGH: Yes, of course, but that's Mr. Hitchcock. And--because if the
same person did it all the time, there was a possibility--slim but still a
possibility--that perhaps the audience might guess it. So by having different
people of around the same stature play it and do the scenes, the audience was
never able to, you know, kind of ...(unintelligible) long enough to say, `Oh,
that's'--and he couldn't do it. And the--I didn't really need a lot of other
thoughts in my head because when that shower curtain goes back and you look at
this figure, which is exactly what they did in the thing, you know, I mean,
that's pretty frightening. I didn't have any trouble with that.

BIANCULLI: Janet Leigh speaking to Terry Gross in 1999. She died yesterday
at age 77. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's interview with Janet Leigh recorded in
1999.

GROSS: Now you were doing the shower scene, so although you weren't
completely nude, you weren't exactly clothed either. You write that you wore
mole skin...

Ms. LEIGH: Right. Because in...

GROSS: ...around your privates, yeah.

Ms. LEIGH: ...the full shots, where you wanted the body outline--Right?--I
wore mole skin over, you know, where I should. And that was, I think, the
roughest--well, one of the roughest things about that sequence because, as you
know, it's a nude-colored, almost soft suede like or something on the outside
and then adhesive, obviously, on the inside. And, you know, taking it on and
off, it was very--on tender skin, it was painful.

GROSS: You know, you must have felt particularly vulnerable because here you
are in the shower, you know, knowing that this actor with a big knife is going
to be coming at you. But, also, you've got these crew guys looking at you
from on top and from the sides, making you, I'm sure, feel more vulnerable.
Were you able to use that vulnerability, knowing that the crew was looking at
you when you were mostly naked? Could you work with that and use that for
your facial expressions?

Ms. LEIGH: Well, I think you use every tool available for whatever you're
trying to portray. Certainly I always noticed that during the shower
sequence, that everybody seemed to have a lot of assistants.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. LEIGH: It was a closed set, but there were more people than I remembered
being on that set. I mean, I think each electrician had sort of two
assistants, and each, you know, grip had two assistants. And one time--one of
the most difficult scenes technically and also for me was at the end when she
falls forward and grabs the shower curtain and goes over the tub. Her head is
kind of against that tub. And he starts on a close-up of the eye and pulls
back into a long shot. Now we did it several times. We were in the 20 takes;
I don't know which one, 24 or 5, something like that. And because it wasn't
automatic focus, it was hand-focused, it was a very difficult technical shot
for the camera operator, who had to do the focusing as we pulled back. And it
was hard for me because of--trying to just have a non-live look in your eye
because I--well, that's another story. But I couldn't wear contact lenses;
not enough time. So it was just a hard shot.

And around the, I don't know, 24th or 5th, somewhere in there--everything
seemed to be going well. But the steam from the hot water had started to sort
of melt the adhesive on the mole skin. And I can feel it pulling away from my
bosoms. And now I knew that camerawise it would never show. But the guys
upstairs on the rafters, the electricians up there, the gaffers, they were
going to get, you know, a peak. And I thought to myself, `Well, what do I do?
I feel it pulling away. This shot is going well. I don't want to do this
shot again, and it's nothing they haven't seen before.' So I just said, `Oh,
let it rip.' And that was the shot that they printed (laughs).

GROSS: How long did you have to stay there without blinking and, you know,
having your eye look dead?

Ms. LEIGH: Yeah. Well, there was a point where the camera was far enough
away that they couldn't tell whether I blinked or not. And he snapped a
finger--I don't know in seconds how long actually, but it seemed forever to
me. And the awful thing was that the water was still dripping down my face,
and it tickled. You know how when you have the drops coming down your--and it
would tickle, and I couldn't react to it, obviously.

GROSS: What was your reaction the first time you saw the final cut of that
scene?

Ms. LEIGH: I didn't see that scene separately; I saw the entire picture. But
I have to tell you that I screamed bloody murder. I mean, I really did, even
though I'd read the script, I'd done the show, I knew what was happening and I
was still here. It just blew me away.

GROSS: So you mean it was more frightening to watch the scene than it was to
shoot it?

Ms. LEIGH: Yes.

GROSS: Why do you think that is?

Ms. LEIGH: Well, because in shooting it, don't forget, you wait maybe two
hours while they're setting up the shot. And, of course, the emotion is there
when you're doing the scene, but then you relax again for another hour while
do they do the next set-up. In the actual seeing of it, you saw the staccato;
you saw the beat of the scene. You saw the mounting tenseness and the
mounting, you know, desperation, and that's where it hits you. And the
music--seeing that all together, that was what made it emphatic, is putting
all the editing together and the music because, otherwise, you know, it was
spread out over seven days. This way I saw it in--What?--45 seconds. And it
was terrifying to me. It's the truth that I never realized in my life before
how vulnerable one is in a shower. And I don't take showers--that's the
truth--because you are completely defenseless. I mean, one, you can't hear
because the water's running. Two, unless you, you know, have a different kind
of curtains, which I'm sure afterwards I know they did, but at that time you
couldn't see out because of the curtain. And you're naked, you're
defenseless. And it just terrified me.

BIANCULLI: Janet Leigh speaking with Terry Gross in 1999. Janet Leigh died
yesterday at age 77.

Terry Gross returns tomorrow. I'm David Bianculli.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.