John C. McGinley Quotes

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!

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!

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.

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.

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 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 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 went to see Alison Krauss and Union Station at Disney Hall and I would say it was one of the most astonishing sonic experiences I have had. It's an enormous room that's acoustically perfect. My interpretation of receiving music as a layman is that the way the music kind of settled on me in that room was perfection.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

I just can't afford to get bored, because if you've been blessed with a generous imagination, which a lot of actors have, to be engaged, to be stimulated, is to liberate your imagination.

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

Turns out, Down syndrome is the most common genetic disorder, occurring once in every 800 births, and no one really knows why it happens. It just does.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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!

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'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.