theartsdesk Q&A: Actor Zach Braff

Zach Braff (b 1975) is overwhelmingly known as the star of Scrubs, the hugely popular American hospital comedy which came with a side order of surrealism. But fans of low-budget indie cinema will also cherish fond memories of Garden State, which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside Natalie Portman. It told of a young actor/waiter on anti-depressants who after nine years in LA comes home to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral and finds a panacea in the form of a beautiful, equally troubled young woman.

After that promising debut, Braff retreated into silence. Pinioned for nine seasons in a contract which made him available for other work for only four months of the year, it was only when Scrubs came to an end that he was free to pursue other avenues, the first of which was a play. Set on Long Beach Island, All New People opens on a man (played by Braff) attempting to hang himself on the occasion of his 35^th birthday, only to be dissuaded by a young female English letting agent with visa problems, an over-educated fireman and an extremely expensive escort. Last summer it opened off Broadway. It now arrives in the West End with, apart from its creator and star, a British cast. Zach Braff talks to theartsdesk about his journey from theatre camp in New York state via television stardom to the rare club he now joins: an actor-writer who has starred in his own play in both New York and London.

JASPER REES: It gives nothing away to say your play starts with an attempted suicide, but why?

ZACH BRAFF: Yes, but it’s a comedy. I think it’s a graphically powerful way to start a play. It’s important early on to let the audience know we are going to be talking about some dark things but it’s OK to laugh. That’s my favourite type of tone, where you can vacillate between belly laughing and turn a corner and something quite serious in someone’s life has happened. Before you let the drama get too serious something funny happens again. That’s how I like to write.

How long did it take you?

I procrastinate like hell. I think I wrote it in pieces over the course of five months and then we had several readings. I actually didn’t even show it anyone. It was an experiment. The first thing I called it was “Play Experiment”. I had never written a play and thought I would like to try.

Was Garden State not an experiment? (Pictured right, Braff with Natalie Portman.)

It was an experiment in a way too, because it was my first screenplay. I wanted to be a film-maker, I wanted to make a film, I went to film school and that was my life’s goal. But I had never written a successful screenplay. When I wrote my screenplay in my screenplay class in Northwestern [in Chicago] I didn’t get a very good grade because I paid no attention to everything we had been learning about structure. It was so formulaic: from page one to 30 you are setting up what their lives are and then on page 30 they enter the quote unquote "new world of whatever the situation is. And it’s in three acts and all this stuff. In Garden State I didn't even think about structure at all and in fact it’s probably one of the reasons probably no one would pay for the movie. Where the third act should go the characters go off on a quest for a piece of jewellery that we don’t even know anything about.

Did you have any templates for writing a play?

I had the unity of time and the idea of incorporating these short flashbacks which everyone tried to get me to cut in New York. Pretty much everyone who gave me notes on the play asked me to cut things but I’m so glad I didn’t just like I’m so glad I didn’t address any of the notes I got on Garden State because they were a huge success and they really work.

Watch the trailer to Garden State

Was the ending of Scrubs the thing that gave you the liberty to do this?

In a lot of ways. Under contract I had a brief hiatus. I certainly couldn't move to London for four months. Scheduling things in that time became difficult because there’s so many moving parts with putting a film together or getting a cast together. I made Garden State during one of my hiatuses and tried to make another film and we were all set to go and then some celebrity, some amazing actor’s schedule shifted and they couldn't do it. It was a Danish film called Open Hearts that I hope to make still one day. I love [the director] Susanne Bier. I think she’s quite a talent and I was planning on making an American version of her film but schedules got wonky.

Was it a relief to be free?

I never thought of it as a relief to be free. It was the best job in the world. I was paid well to go to work and act like a goofball with all my best friends. I mean it’s sort of a dream job. I did feel that after eight years we had told the story and it felt like we were circling back to other things.