Zach Braff Says ‘Scrubs’ Cast Worked ‘Insane’ Hours: ‘I Wouldn’t’ Do That Again
Zach Braff is looking back on what is perhaps the biggest role of his career to date: starring in “Scrubs.”
The beloved series ran from 2001 to 2010, but Braff admitted that the ensemble cast was “pretty fried” by the end of the show.
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“We would do insane hours that people don’t even do anymore,” Braff said during the “Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum” podcast in the below video. “We didn’t really have much of a life outside of it. So we were just kind of fried.”
Braff added that the network gave the full cast “insane contracts” for multi-year roles, which added to the long hours. The “Garden State” writer/director/star admitted that he would not sign up again for something like that, when asked about a possible reunion.
“When we signed up to do our show, they can put you under a pretty insane contract of, like, seven years and stuff, which was…which I wouldn’t do [again],” Braff said. “But some sort of a limited thing? You’re basically saying, ‘Do you wanna go get the gang back together and fucking laugh your ass off with some of your best friends and be paid well?’ Yeah, that sounds amazing!”
Braff added, “I miss laughing every day. Belly laughing every day was the job. And when that goes away, by the time nine years were over, we were sort of all exhausted by it. We were starting to repeat jokes. Everyone’s pretty fried. […] But now looking back, and there’s talk of reboots, and that’s a conversation, I think, ‘Oh my gosh. Being able to laugh — belly laugh — with these people again, would be a lot of fun.'”
“Scrubs” producer Bill Lawrence told Variety in 2023 that a “Scrubs” movie adaptation is “inevitable.”
“The joke of it with us is the first time that six months go by that we don’t hang out, we’ll end up doing a ‘Scrubs’ reunion,” Lawrence said. “In the greatest way, the cast of that show and the writers are so good that they’re all working. And the main reason to do something like that isn’t the work, it’s because we actually love hanging out.”
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