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THE LAST KISS Zach Braff, 31, found fame as long-suffering doctor John ‘JD’ Dorian on the hilarious American hospital sitcom Scrubs. He found a different kind of fame in 2004 when his film Garden State - which he wrote and directed - was a huge success. THE LAST KISS is the first film he has made since, and on this occasion he is simply an actor, the film’s very confused 30-year-old protagonist Michael. THE LAST KISS features a soundtrack hand-selected by Braff who won a Grammy for his Garden State compelation. It features Snow Patrol, Imogen Heap, Coldplay, Athlete, Turin Brakes, Fiona Apple, Remy Zero, Ray LaMontagne and Rufus Wainwright. The Last Kiss is about a young guy who’s not sure he’s ready for marriage and kids. Did the story resonate with you? Of course. It’s honest, and about things I can relate to. Scripts like this are so few and far between. After Garden State I felt that all the things I was getting sent were a total step in the wrong direction. So I waited until I found something I responded to. At the time, I’d just turned 30 so I could relate to a lot of Michael’s emotions. So how was turning 30 for you? What I’m discovering as I talk to people older than me is that there are different crises at every age. Every age has its own things that you’re worrying about and obsessing over. For me, it wasn’t really about age. I guess I was anticipating it being about age, meaning that I’d long to get back to my 20s. I didn’t really feel that. Given that you’re a famous face you must be approached by loads of women. Do you have a good bullshit detector? I was a waiter five years ago so yes, I have a very good bullshit detector. These days there seems to be a perception that women are as aggressive as men in hunting romantic partners. Do you think that’s true? I hope that’s true but I don’t think I’ve ever been hunted. I do think this movie is from a guy perspective and guys always get the slack from women who say, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to commit’. I think that’s bull. I think that women are just as much about, ‘God, I think he’s the one and I think I want to spend my life with him but there’s this guy I’ve loved since school’. I think we all go through that. It’s fear. My generation doesn’t really have too many great success stories for people who have lasted their whole lives together. Most of our parents got divorced and remarried so I think there’s maybe a new level of anxiety. There’s a line in the movie where I tell my girlfriend Jenna [Jacinda Barrett], ‘I told you I’d marry you when you can name three couples you know personally who have lasted more than five years’ and she can’t. Had your paths crossed previously? I knew who she was. When I was a kid she was the hottest girl ever on The Real World. And then I watched her start to become an actress and saw her in movies like Ladder 49 and thought, ‘Wow, this girl can actually act’. I’d never seen anyone from a reality show who actually has talent. Then I didn’t see her for a while. We auditioned everyone in town for this part, it’s such a hard one. And then the producers mentioned her and said they’d heard she was going to be the next big thing. And I said, ‘The Real World girl? Really? She’s beautiful but are you sure?’ And she came in and just blew us away. Tony [Goldwyn, the film’s director] and I hugged each other when she left the room. There aren’t that many actresses who look like that and have that level of acting chops so I think she’s going to do big things.
It was very awkward. It’s one thing if I’d known her my whole life and we were buddies and we could be like, ‘Okay, this is weird but we’ve got to do this’. But you meet someone for a couple of weeks and then it’s like, ‘Alright, well...’ On Scrubs though I do that more often than not although it’s not as intense as it is in this movie. I’ll never forget Julianna Margulies came on Scrubs to do a guest role and I went up to her and said, ‘Hi Julianna, nice to meet you, I'm a big fan of your work. Welcome’. And then the director said, ‘OK, first scene up. You guys are making out in the ICU’. It’s always weird and bizarre and it’s one of those times when you stop and go, ‘I can’t believe this is my job’. It’s not like Rachel is some tough extrovert, she’s an innocent and I think she plays the part wonderfully. But of course she was nervous. Michael is a bit of a jerk in the film. Was there any hesitation on your part about playing that sort of character? No, I ran to it because it was honest and real. I think protagonists who are altruistic and perfect and do all the right things and only have negative things happen to them when negative forces act upon them is such bullshit. Who’s like that? He’s a human guy. We all make stupid mistakes in our lives. We all do things and the next day think, ‘Oh my God, I wish I could go back in time’. And I think there will be people who think Michael is a jerk but I think there will also be plenty of people who will go, ‘He’s human and he made a mistake I could have made and he’s going to pay the price. He could lose the love of his life’. But he’s a human being who had to go through this life experience in order to become the person he is now. I can guarantee he’ll never do that again. He sort of needed that puzzle piece in order to become that person. Music is hugely important to you. You compiled the soundtrack for both this film and Garden State, for which you won a Grammy. Do you play an instrument yourself? No. I wish. I have a dream of one day taking piano lessons but I just love music. I don’t even know that much about it. I just know what I like. And when I made the Garden State compilation, I never imagined anyone would like it. It was just music that I liked and my friends liked and were listening to. I have a lot of friends who are musicians so I thought that that music summed up the tone of my life, it was sort of the score of my life. And then it sold over a million copies and I thought, ‘Wow, there are a lot of people out there who like this too’. So when The Last Kiss opportunity came up they asked if I’d be willing to do the same thing for this movie and I was so excited. It’s just sharing great music and introducing the world to some people they don’t know, like a guy called Cary Brothers who isn’t even signed yet. Is it fair to say Garden State changed everything for you? I think so. When I did that I thought, ‘There have got to be people out there who like the kind of movies I like so hopefully it’ll have a small reaction’. And then I saw the reaction it got and I was like, ‘Wow, there’s a huge audience that likes these kinds of movies’. And it made me think that I could have a career making the kinds of movies I want to make. I don’t have to do somebody else’s crap to pay the bills. It comes back to Scrubs. I’ve been very lucky that I make a nice living doing a TV show. It’s a great day job so to speak. But I don’t have to rush out and do the crap as a lot of other actors have to do because they have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed.
Did you always plan to write and direct films? Yes, I went to film school. I set out to be a filmmaker. That’s what I always dreamed of doing. I loved acting and I thought I would do that on the side, get myself small parts in movies. But my real focus from the beginning was always to get my own movies made and then when I got Scrubs, it changed everything. Scrubs enabled me to sign with a big agency and that then enabled me to get my Garden State screenplay in the door quicker. But yes, it was always my goal to make movies. Will we ever see you in a big vacuous action film? Trust me I could have cashed in a thousand times already. It’s not really about that. I want to do everything and try a lot of things. But right now when I’m just starting out and can have control over what I do it’s important to wait for the things that really matter to me. Are you writing anything at the moment? When I wrote Garden State, I had six months to sit around and write that. I’ve adapted a Danish movie called Open Hearts which was at the Sundance Film Festival four years ago. It’s a very serious drama which I think I’m going to direct next year. I want to take on something really dark and this is about a car accident and how an injury that comes from it affects all these people who are involved. It’s about so many things I’m interested in discussing. Will you be in it? It’ll depend on the cash I get together and if I would need to be in to help get financing. I’m on the fence.
THE LAST KISS is released in cinemas across the UK on 20 October Interview courtesy of Momentum Pictures. Related Topics
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You
also have a sex scene with The OC’s Rachel Bilson. What was it
like filming that?