Sacred Heart Hospital on ‘”Scrubs” was staffed by a laundry list of great comedic characters, but only one of them was tasked with tying the entire story together. The NBC medical comedy’s beating heart was also its wise-cracking main character: Zach Braff’s Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian, who doubled as the narrator and whose viewpoint served as the lens through which the entire series was filtered.
It’s a very particular role that required a very particular performer, and it’s hard to imagine anyone but Braff playing the part. Yet he was far from a lock for the role during the casting process. In an interview with People, the actor revealed that he not only had to audition for a good half a dozen times, but that he nearly didn’t get the chance to be seen by casting directors at all.
“This is in ’99 when they would FedEx a VHS tape from New York to LA. But the tape went missing or something,” Braff explained. “I just went in again like I had never gone in before. I auditioned like six times, total. And then I got it.” It might have been a lucky break that the initial tape got lost in transit — as Braff shared, “The very first audition, my tape was not good.”
Braff’s castmate Donald Faison got off easier with his Scrubs audition process
Zach Braff ultimately managed to run his six-audition gauntlet, even with the tape mishap. However, don’t take his lengthy audition process to mean that everyone on the cast had to jump the exact same hurdles. For instance, Donald Faison, who plays J.D.’s best friend Turk, had an easier time. “I auditioned three times,” Faison chimed in on the People interview. “I wore the same outfit to every audition.”
There was a reason for Faison’s lighter audition schedule. By the time “Scrubs” premiered in 2001, he had already appeared in numerous movies and TV shows, notably playing the main role of Murray Duvall in the ABC and UPN sitcom “Clueless.” Meanwhile, Braff entered the show as a borderline unknown with just a handful of minor roles to his name. In all fairness, Braff recognized the difference in the pair’s career paths at the time. “Donald had been in some big things already,” he said in the People interview. “So I think I had to climb a further ladder. I was waiting tables and certainly not making a living off being a working actor at the time.”
With the “Scrubs” reboot with the original cast premiering in February 2026, Braff, Faison, Sarah Chalke, and Judy Reyes are set to revisit their iconic characters for the first time in a decade and a half. Series creator Bill Lawrence is urging even the most skeptical fans to get on board, and while it remains to be seen just how well the revival will capture the charm of the original, at least we can be fairly sure that Braff didn’t have to audition six times this time around.