The Cast of Scrubs Loves Getting to Work With Each Other Again After All These Years

The cast of Scrubs is back after all these years. Starting in 2001, the series introduced us to JD (Zach Braff), Turk (Donald Faison), and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) as they embarked on a medical career. Now, the show has returned for season 2 of its revival that has our beloved crew working with a new set of interns.

As part of the press for the release of season 2 of the series, I was lucky enough to ask a question at the Critics Choice Awards press conference with the show. Faison, Chalke, and Braff talked with members of the CCA and I asked what the best part about returning to the show, 16 years later has been.

“Getting to be with these guys again,” Faison said. “We developed a friendship all those years ago and it’s still-even if we weren’t doing this show, we’d still be on the phone talking to each other, you know what I mean? But the fact that we get to do this again is, you know, it’s unbelievable. I don’t know any—I don’t know of any show that’s like this, that comes back, and everybody’s friends, and we care about each other. Like I said, I don’t know of a show that’s like that.”

For Braff, it was a bit more about the joy of making the show and how much fun a show like Scrubs is. Braff said:

It’s just so joyful to make the show. It’s the greatest job. You come to work, and we work hard. And don’t get me wrong, it can be stressful doing it, and getting an episode in five days is stressful, but you know that the second you step on set, you’re going to spend the whole day laughing. And I just can’t think of a—and I’ve had lots of different jobs, and so have these guys, but I can’t think of a more fun job than working on Scrubs. You know that even though you’re going to be stressed at times, especially if you’re running the show, you’re still going to laugh all day long. 

Chalke talked about the creativity of a set like Scrubs and how it felt to know that she could “try anything” and it would work for what they were trying to do. “It’s the most creative, collaborative set that I’ve ever walked onto, and there’s such a safety in that, where you feel like you can try anything,” Chalke said. “And if it doesn’t work, they’re just not going to use it, and nobody, you know, like you can fall flat on your face. You can try something that doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter. And the joy, like Zach and Donald are both saying, that comes out of that is like nothing I’ve experienced on another job. And I think, you know, like you can hope to walk onto a set, on a new set, and have chemistry with people, but what you can’t manufacture is history, and we have 25 years of history with people. The safety in that, it’s like Michael Spiller, who’s our creative director, he was like, “’ want there to be such a safe environment on set, that that’s where the magic happens,’ and that’s what’s happened. It’s so fun.”

You can see the gang back together on Scrubs.