Club Med

MO' 'SCRUBS' McGinley predicts the medical sitcom will perform better than the "unmitigated crap" NBC has previously put in the post-"Friends" spot

Last season, "Scrubs" fans were left in a state of shock (get the defibrillator, stat) when Jordan (guest star Christa Miller) revealed Sacred Heart Hospital's dark and dirty secrets to an unsuspecting staff. But the high-blood-pressure high jinks are just beginning. John C. McGinley, who plays J.D.'s intimidating mentor Dr. Cox, spoke with EW.com about what we can expect from the second season (debuts Sept. 26 at 8:30 p.m.) -- including why J.D. (Zach Braff) could be shopping for baby booties, and the scoop on the cast's very own fear factor.

What surprises await us in season 2?
Christa Miller, who's married to our executive producer Billy Lawrence, is pregnant in real life. So Billy's going to milk that. And considering that J.D. had a Mrs. Robinson with her last year, and Cox has courtesy sex with her all the time...

Do you know if Cox is the father?
I don't know whose kid it is yet. I think they're going to introduce a third character who's shagging Jordan too. I'm guessing the kid isn't mine, although I wish it was. It would be great to see Cox with a kid. But I don't think we're going to take the edges off that much.

How does the cast feel about following in the doomed footsteps of "Inside Schwartz" and "The Single Guy" as the follow-up to "Friends"?
[NBC entertainment president] Jeff Zucker told us people are going to switch channels and watch the second half of "Survivor," that's just the way it is. You're going to lose 20 percent to 30 percent of your audience. But that still leaves 17 or 18 million viewers. The difference between us and those other shows is that they were unmitigated crap. And "Scrubs" isn't.

What's ahead for Elliot (Sarah Chalke) this season?
In one episode, she tells me she wants to be treated as a colleague, an equal. So I give her the job of telling someone her husband's dying. And when she comes back all sunny and chipper, she becomes the Angel of Death for the hospital for a little while, dispensing bad news for all the doctors.

It's been said that some of the characters in the series are vastly different from when they were originally conceived. What's been changed?
In the pilot, Elliot was written as this horrible bitch, and Sarah was incredibly miscast for that because she doesn't have a bitch bone in her body. But instead of doing what's in vogue right now, which is recasting and reshooting, Billy rewrote her as a "Butterflies Are Free" Goldie Hawn with foot-in-mouth disease, which she's fantastic at.

What about Dr. Cox?
I said at the first audition that he was way too similar to the head of the hospital, and that I didn't want to play another prickly acerbic guy from hell. I wanted windows of redemption. And to Billy's eternal credit, he worked with me. I mean, I certainly didn't have any sense of entitlement to the role, because I had to audition for it four or five times.

The series is shot at a defunct hospital in Los Angeles. Is that a cost-cutting measure?
I'm pretty sure there's nothing cheap about it, because typically someone's whining that we should move to a studio, and something breaks down every single day. But I don't want to move. It's like Scrubs University there, because there are no network suits around. And it's funny, because the writers' room is in the old psychiatric ward.

Can you explain the "Scrubs Fear Factor"?
I never leave my dressing room, so I'm not so hip to it. But we collect money every Friday, and to get the kitty, someone has to complete a certain extreme task over the weekend. Somebody ate pigs' feet once, and then another guy had to wear Maori face makeup that was applied with a Sharpie. He made about a thousand dollars, and it's tax free.

Weren't you supposed to get an Emmy nomination this year?
I bought into all that Emmy buzz for a minute or two. John Cusack [his "Fat Man and Little Boy" costar and longtime friend] and I had a conversation about that -- because for every movie that he's in, it seems like someone gets nominated for an Oscar but never him. And he told me, "Cut it out. You play the most fun character on TV, so nail it, grow up, and be quiet."

What's this about you filming another project on the "Scrubs" set?
Well, I'm shooting a public service announcement for the National Down Syndrome Society this month, but I'm just going to borrow the "Scrubs" crew for a medium shot, then a tight shot, and that's it. The producers said it was okay, which was great because NDSS has exactly zero money for this sort of thing. I'm this year's spokesman for the organization's Buddy Walk, which means a lot to me. My son Max, who's five, has Down syndrome, and he has completely informed how I play Dr. Cox. He's the angel on my shoulder. When those times come when Dr. Cox drops the tough-guy act to show some love, those are what I call Max moments. Since he's been born, I don't want to play tough guys anymore. I don't have it in me.