‘Scrubs’ Revival: OG Cast On Slaying At First Run-Through, Forgetting They’re Not In LA Anymore & Retiring Eagle With Stuntman Injury On Set

The Scrubs revival, which premieres Feb. 25 on ABC, is bringing back J.D. (Zach Braff) and the gang — as well as some of their signature antics. That includes J.D. and Turk’s famous Eagle. As the trailer for the new series revealed, recreating the Eagle years later did not go without a hitch as Turk (Donald Faison) collapsed on the floor with J.D. on his back.

“The stuntman broke his face open pretty much,” Faison said of the scene, in which the actors used stunt doubles.

Added Braff, “We only did one take of it, and that’s what you’re seeing, because he fell so hard onto the floor and cut his eye. We have our onset doctor, who’s our consultant, he took one look at and he’s like,’Yeah, you need a stitch.’ And we’re like, ‘All right, Take One it is.’”

Faison was quick to clarify that “I can still Eagle. I’m still very strong,” with Braff explaining, “Yeah, Donald wants the world to know that he, Donald, can indeed carry a 165-pound man but Turk can’t.”

In the exchange, the duo were channeling their characters who, a decade and a half after the Scrubs finale, still come across as menchildren. Will they be adulting in the revival?

“In real life we are manchildren, let’s be honest,” Faison quipped. “But I do have to parent my kids.”

Added Braff, “We are real adults. Joking aside, one of the mandates from [Scrubs creator] Bill [Lawrence] and myself was, we don’t want them to be children. Obviously, silly guys, but when things get serious, they drop in and they’re adults, whether it’s dealing with their children or dealing with relationships exploding, or, most importantly, dealing with the emergencies of the patients and teaching these young crop of interns, that’s all played real.”

Speaking of real, the revival is not filmed in the same real Los Angeles hospital that housed the original show. The new series is shot in Vancouver where the hospital was recreated on soundstages.

“I never thought it would be 100% accurate or to scale, I thought it would be like 65% to scale,” Braff said. “It’s over 30,000 square feet. It is pretty much every place we shot in the old abandoned hospital recreated on stage, just extraordinary work by the production designer and his team. It used to be the old hospital on Riverside and Whitsett, for those in L.A. that read this and know where that is, and literally, you’ll be in the set, and you’ll go, oh, that’s Riverside that way. The drop actually looks so real that looks out north in the Valley, it’s very, very, very surreal.

Added Sarah Chalke (Elliot), “It’s such a trip. And they actually got to do the old hospital, it’s identical, but make it better, because when we’re shooting the old hospital, you’re in a tight patient’s room or something, and you’re like, oh, wish we could fly that wall. And now they can, they can open up all the different sides. It was really cool, it was really surreal, actually, to walk onto the set for the first time, because obviously we spent all of our 20s there, and then to come back that many years later and have it be exactly the same, it was incredible.”

Said Faison, “It took all of nine weeks not to get lost on the set.”

Despite the lengthy hiatus, the Scrubs OGs didn’t have trouble getting back into character and into the rhythm of the show.

“It was like riding a bike,” John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) said. “We had a read-through over at ABC-Disney before we started for about 75 execs who’ve been there, done and seen it. It was as exciting as an off- off-Broadway opening night, the teleplay absolutely sparked in that room. People were cheering, that was very seductive and contagious, and it sparked us from there. That was a great point of departure that the entire ensemble was energized by, knowing that we slayed that room of been-there, done and seen it [executives]. It felt like a big fat stamp of validation, and we carried forward with that.

Added Judy Reyes (Carla), “And the pressure is on the writing. When we all got the scripts we were like, ‘The script is good, it’s good,’ and then everything just clicks. The moment we start to speak, we laugh at each other and things that we thought we would laugh at, things that we didn’t laugh at when we read it. People’s delivery, their performances, our comedy assassins who come in just for one scene, or sometimes even a line, but they just completely slay us every time. It was like the old days. It was like we never left, in terms of working with everybody else.”

Scrubs premieres Feb. 25 on ABC. Below is the trailer.