John C. McGinley

I knew I wanted to play "Dr Cox" really bad, which is always a huge mistake because as soon as you want something really bad, maybe you rip up a little bit.

On 'Platoon' I was offered in 1984 a very tiny part that Ivan Kane would go on to play. Then the financing fell out, and the film was scuttled for two years.

I built a baseball field in the lower part of our property and I'm always working on that. I got a wheelbarrow, a pick and a shovel, and I started to build a baseball field during writers' strike. We have boys and girls come over and we have clinics in the spring. It's called The Strike because it's named for the writers' strike.

I like to be in waiting rooms with people as they're auditioning, because their terror calms me.

I worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange back when they used to write tickets. And I was just a runner. So a guy would write a ticket and I would run it, and it was endless. That was a hard job. And I dug tungsten... for a coal company in Wyoming one summer, and that was pretty miserable.

I would love to have a photographic memory. It would come in handy with the rants I'm given on Scrubs... often on short notice!

Dr. Cox mentors the rookie doctors with a spoonful of dirt and then a cup of sugar. I see him as an archetypal descendent of two of my favorite curmudgeonly characters: Lou Grant and Louie De Palma.

I wanted to be Red Barber, Mel Allen or Howard Cosell. I loved their personalities and all of their sounds.

I got my Equity card from an audition out of Backstage. We did 'Guys and Dolls' and 'Kismet.'

I knew I wanted to play 'Dr Cox' really bad, which is always a huge mistake because as soon as you want something really bad, maybe you rip up a little bit.

I have no issue with being a character actor. If you've been around enough that people are able to segregate you into that category, it means you're working. So that's good!

TV tends to look for the living equivalents of squeaky-clean Kens and Barbies, but with my dial I'm more like Ken's dirty old uncle.

What helps writers, and ultimately, obviously, helps the actors - who should serve the words that the writer puts on the page - is if the character has damages, because then the writers can cultivate and excavate, like a dentist going into a tooth.

What's so interesting about 'Point Break' to me is that it's a study of testosterone and adrenaline by a woman. That's why it's little more interesting than it should be.

As an actor, it's great to play a strong leader with a heart of gold.

If you watch 'E.T.' and say that there are holes in the story because this alien lands, then don't go to the movie! It drives me insane.

You go see 'Timothy Green,' and tell me if it doesn't rock your world. I loved it. I loved every frame of it.

I have mixed feelings about 'Car 54, Where Are You?' Because we shot it as a musical and whoever the studio head was at Orion, or whoever the powers that be were, cut all but, like, two musical numbers out of it. That is the same as cutting the musical numbers out of 'The Wizard Of Oz'; it wouldn't be that interesting.

You go to the hospital your wife's in labor and you're doing the thing, and then it's very disorienting and scary and you beat yourself up and you go through a whole period of 'woe is me' and then you realize that this a gift, this child is the light, and if you can nourish that light and just let it shine, you have an opportunity to get closer to what I think is God.

I'm a homebody. If I'm not working I'm with my family being a dad.

Groups like the NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, NOW and GLAAD, will respond to derisive language directed at their constituents. The price paid by those who cavalierly chose to verbally disrespect the dignity of African Americans, Jews, women and homosexuals is steep.

The conventional wisdom with David Mamet is, you do not change a word. And that agrees with me. If you want to change any of David's words, it's like wanting to change the iambic pentameter in Shakespeare - you should do something else.

I felt (a) it was a great role and (b) I wanted to stay in town. I wanted to stop going to these four month and five month gigs up in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or down in Mexico. I wanted to be around my son, Max. This came along and I was like, 'I really want to play this guy!'

'Learn your lines.' I want that on my gravestone.

I did feel Dr. Cox, the character that I was auditioning for, was too similar to the head of the hospital. He was too arrogant and mean. I approached him kind of like I had a miniature Max sitting on my shoulder. I pictured Max saying, "This guy has got to give love every once in a while. He has to!" I knew there had to be tiny little windows of redemption.

I've always thought Ed Burns was a profoundly underrated actor. He's a great director, obviously. A great director/writer. But I think he's a stunning actor, too.

My son walked up to Nicole on the beach and I was throwing the ball for the dogs in the ocean. I was like, 'Max, you get the dogs. I'll talk to the hot blondes.'

I felt (a) it was a great role and (b) I wanted to stay in town. I wanted to stop going to these four month and five month gigs up in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or down in Mexico. I wanted to be around my son, Max. This came along and I was like, "I really want to play this guy!"

I got the pilot for 'Scrubs' sent to me, and in the margin for Dr. Cox, it said 'a John McGinley type.' So when I went in to audition, I said to Billy Lawrence, who's a dear friend of mine, I said, 'Well, I'm John McGinley.'

If you can figure out where you fit into any particular story, you'll be okay. When you're not quite sure where you fit in, you try to be too many parts of the story. You gild the lily. I see it all the time.