Zach Braff
Zach Braff’s success as an actor began with the 2001 beloved television series “Scrubs.” The half-hour show received numerous Emmy® Award nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Comedy Writing during its nine-year run, and Braff earned an Emmy nomination and three consecutive Golden Globe® nominations all while transitioning to work behind the camera, where he soon found equal footing as a director, writer and producer.
After earning his film degree from Northwestern University, Braff worked at the renowned Public Theatre in New York. He starred in the 1998 staging of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” as well as the 2002 New York Shakespeare Festival production at Central Park’s Delacorte Theatre of “Twelfth Night.” He went on to star in Paul Weitz’s off-Broadway original drama, “Trust,” in 2010, and then made his West End debut in 2012 starring in his own original play, “All New People.” In March 2014, Braff made his Broadway debut as the lead in “Bullets Over Broadway,” based on the screenplay of the 1994 film.
After directing seven episodes of “Scrubs,” (including the show’s landmark 100th episode), Braff made his feature film debut as a director and writer on the 2004 comedy-drama “Garden State,” in which he also starred. Shot in Braff’s home state of New Jersey for a budget $2.5 million, the film sold for a then-unprecedented $5 million to Fox Searchlight at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. “Garden State” grossed more than $35 million at the box office, received accolades from film critics across the board and garnered over three dozen award nominations. Braff won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and was nominated for Best First Screenplay. He also earned a Writers Guild nomination for Best Original Screenplay and picked up a Best Director nod from the National Board of Review (plus a second “special recognition” prize). The film’s soundtrack sold more than one million copies and earned Braff a GRAMMY® Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album. Other “Garden State” honors include Breakthrough Director from the Hollywood Film Festival and a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Wish I Was Here” was the second feature film Braff directed. Co-written with his brother, Adam, “Wish I Was Here” starred Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin and Josh Gad, along with Braff in the lead acting role. The film debuted at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in June 2014.
In 2017, Braff directed a remake of the hit 1979 Martin Brest caper comedy “Going in Style” for Warner Bros. written by Theodore Melfi. Academy Award® winners Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin reprised the roles originally played by George Burns, Lee Strasberg and Art Carney.
Returning to network TV in 2018, Braff directed, produced and starred in the ABC/Sony series “Alex, Inc.” Based on Alex Blumberg’s popular podcast “StartUp,” the single-camera comedy was created by “Scrubs” writer/producer Matt Tarses.
Adobe teamed with Braff in 2019 to create #MoviePosterMovie, a contest for students to design a fictious movie poster using Adobe software. The winning poster served as the basis for the short film “In The Time It Takes to Get There” starring Florence Pugh and Alicia Silverstone that Braff wrote and directed. The short won a 2020 Webby Award for Writing and the UK’s prestigious D&AD Award for in both the Entertainment Fiction Film and Writing for a Fiction Film categories.
Braff and “Scrubs” castmate Donald Fasion launched the iHeart podcast “Fake Doctor, Real Friends” in March 2020. Episodes features an inside discussion about a particular “Scrubs” episode, candid conversations about Braff and Faison’s 20-year friendship and special-guest appearances. The podcast has over 100 million downloads, over 200 episodes, and has spent weeks on the podcast Top 10 charts and has been nominated for several awards.
In 2020, Braff re-teamed with “Scrubs” creator Bill Lawrence to direct an episode of the AppleTV+ show “Ted Lasso,” which earned him a 2021 DGA nomination and a 2021 Primetime Emmy Award. Braff, Lawrence and AppleTV+ have since worked together again with Braff-directing “Shrinking,” starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford, and Braff’s guest-starring role on “Bad Monkey,” starring Vince Vaughn.
In February 2026 Zach will return to Sacred Heart Hospital in the “Scrubs” reboot on ABC. The show follows J.D. and Turk as they navigate a modern medical system that has “beaten them down” after 15 years, while J.D. faces the reality of being the “oldie” rather than the “newbie.” Braff directs the pilot episode and serves as the show’s executive producer.
Additional film acting credits include Greg Berlanti’s poignant comedy, “The Broken Hearts Club”; Tony Goldwyn’s romantic comedy, “The Last Kiss”; “The High Cost of Living”; “The Ex,” opposite Amanda Peet and Jason Bateman; “Getting to Know You,” adapted from works by Joyce Carol Oates; the Walt Disney fantasy adventure “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” directed by Sam Raimi; and he also voiced the title character of Disney’s 2005 animated hit “Chicken Little.”
PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOMETOWN: South Orange, New Jersey
BIRTHDATE: April 6
