John C. McGinley

“My son, Max, was born the day Princess Di died.”

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

“I always wanted to be Gene Hackman and I always wanted to be, you know... I wanted to be one of these guys. I always wanted to be Bob Duvall.”

“I'm just really proud of 'Dead Head Fred.'”

“You know, post-production is a bit of a grind to me. If I'm producing a film, I really... I mean I like editing, but all the other crap, the color mixing and... it's all a grind. And so as a result I cut back producing the number of films I was producing.”

“A lot of things went incredibly well for 'Scrubs': from a ridiculous number of downloads on the iPods, to whenever they issue a new season on DVD it kinda sells out, and we got nominated for an Emmy. To be picked up for six years is all gravy, man.”

“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.'”

“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.”

“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 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 don't want to be the guy who goes, 'Oh yeah, blah blah blah... everyone freaking well knows me.' Because that's not the case. Once in a while, someone will remember some silly thing I did and then they feel good. And they go, 'Oh, hey, Michael Bolton, I celebrate your whole catalog.' And I'm like, 'Great, great, I totally get it.'”

“Kanan is a big road through the Santa Monica Mountains. Between mid-March and mid-April, when you get over to the western side of the mountains, it's populated by Spanish broom - this beautiful, yellow, flowering weed that smells the way I imagine it smells along the Yellow Brick Road.”

“I did an episode of 'Frasier' with my friend Kelsey Grammer once.”

“I am a father. My son's name is Max and my daughter's name is Billie Grace. Twelve years ago Max was born with Down Syndrome. His journey has been complicated by infantile seizures, sleep apnea, dietary challenges and now, puberty!”

“Freedom of speech is, to all Americans, as oxygen is to the human condition. It is a right that has been irreversibly programmed into our hard drive. We are free to speak our minds. An artist's right to express him or herself as best suits their art, is the artist's prerogative and it is guaranteed.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

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