There’s much more to Zach Braff than hospital scrubs and hair that could keep the entire mousse industry afloat. His second career as a film-maker got off to quite the start with his 2004 directorial debut Garden State, which he also wrote and starred in. Shot for just $2.5m, it went on to make more than $35m worldwide, pick up over three dozen award nominations and earn Braff a Grammy for compiling its soundtrack, featuring the Shins, Coldplay and Nick Drake.
Then as a film actor he has also popped up in everything from 2000 gay ensemble comedy-drama The Broken Hearts Club, alongside Timothy Olyphant, and 2006 romantic drama The Last Kiss, opposite Jacinda Barrett, to 2006 workplace romcom The Ex, with Jason Bateman, and 2016 John Steinbeck adaptation In Dubious Battle, directed by James Franco.
Braff last faced Guardian readers in a 2014 webchat during which we learned that he had never seen an episode of Family Guy, that he tried unsuccessfully to steal Rowdy the stuffed dog from the Scrubs set and that he has given serious thought to the question of whether ghosts have genitals. But a lot has happened since then. Braff directed Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin in 2017 heist comedy Going in Style, wrote and directed 2023 drama A Good Person, starring Florence Pugh and Freeman, and earned an Emmy nomination for directing an episode of Ted Lasso.
Then of course there’s Scrubs, which returned earlier this year after 16 years away, with Braff back as JD alongside Turk, Elliot, Dr Cox and plenty of familiar faces – only this time JD is the senior doctor rather than the nervous newbie. The revival’s second season begins in the US on 30 September.
And next comes Clean Hands, a crime drama based on a true story, in which Braff plays a narcotics officer whose work life turns painfully personal when his teenage daughter becomes addicted to heroin.
So get your thinking scrubs on and post your questions for Braff by 6pm on Monday 5 October, and we’ll print his best answers as part of our reader interview series. Nurse!
• Clean Hands is in cinemas and on demand in the US on 16 October
