Posted in: ABC, TV | Tagged: Scrubs

Scrubs: Bunn, Dudman, Gridley on "Cool College-Like" Experience & More

Scrubs stars Ava Bunn, Jacob Dudman, and David Gridley discuss joining the series revival, working alongside the original cast, and more.

Since season eight of Scrubs, there has been a greater focus on the intern class that tapped more into their personalities as the original stars Zach Braff (JD), Donald Faison (Turk), and Sarah Chalke (Elliot) went from being interns themselves early in the show's run to senior attendees and embracing teaching roles. It continues with the latest class in the Scrubs revival for season 10, as the trio finds themselves working together again after 16 years away, following the series' initial cancellation in 2010. The new class includes Asher Green (Jacob Dudman), a British intern who shares JD's idealism, but needs to harden himself to the gritty nature of medicine; Sam Tosh (Ava Bunn), who tends to think a bit more outside the box as an influencer which at times gets on the nerves of Elliot and Cox (John C. McGinley), who prefer her to stay focused on what she's learning at the hospital; and Blake Lewis (David Gridley), an intern who's overconfident, but stays socially detached to his detriment. Bunn, Dudman, and Gridley spoke to Bleeding Cool about how familiar they were with the original Bill Lawrence-created series during its run on NBC and ABC, whether they had any medical training to prep before filming, and how they were embraced as part of the Scrubs family. The following does contain minor spoilers.

Scrubs Stars Ava Bunn, Jacob Dudman, and David Gridley on Becoming Part of Season 10's Intern Class

BC: How familiar were you with the original Scrubs before casting, and which character resonated with you the most?

Dudman: Great question. Well, I had not seen the show before, but it somehow evaded me for the first 28 years of my life. As soon as I got the role (of Asher), everyone I'd ever known came out telling me about how much they love Scrubs, so I don't know how I missed it. As soon as I got the part and started watching it, I had 48 hours between landing the role and being in Canada to film. I binged as much of it as I could and obviously fell in love with these characters. I've got to say that I think I related a little bit to JD in the way that he tries his best but doesn't always succeed, but his heart is in the right place. Yeah, I can feel a little bit awkward, geeky sometimes, and I enjoyed having a show to watch with a character like that at the center of it.

Bunn: Yeah, I was being breastfed when I first saw the show over my mom's shoulder as milk was going into my mouth. I was like, "I like that blonde girl on the TV," and then after I detached from her teat, my first word was "Elliot." Crazy. [Dudman and Gridley laugh]

Gridley: Oh yeah, I was about 10 years old when the show came out, so I didn't watch it as it was airing, but in high school, I remember seeing a few episodes. My dad was a fan of it, started watching it in college, because one of my best friends was a huge fan of it, and then obviously, once I found out, I booked it, and I binge-watched it to get familiar. All the characters are so great. Hooch is really funny to me. I think his one-liners are a lot of fun, and I do love Phill Lewis so much.

How did you acclimate to the medical environment? Was there any crash course that you had to do? Did you talk to Dr. Jonathan Doris, the consultant there? How'd you get into your roles?

Gridley: I feel like we all did our own individual research, and then we came together and shared the knowledge we had found. The show did a great job of having advisors on set. The show prides itself on having medically accurate situations. We had a lot of support on set to learn and to look like we knew what we were doing.

Dudman: Shout out to Yarrow and Cathy, who were always on set telling us what to do and how to say things, because honestly there's like very little time to…there's a reason people go to medical school for years and years and learn the stuff that they learn. We didn't have that time as a luxury, but they made us all gain an even greater appreciation for what those people do.

Follow-up question: You mentioned earlier, Jacob. Early in the series [in 102], Asher gets a bit of a crash course in the realities of the American healthcare system. How do you navigate those scenes with Zach?

Dudman: For myself? The American healthcare system…I think Zach was one of the people who wrote those scenes into the show. It's interesting being an outsider, in my country, we're very proud of the National Health Service, and I wouldn't want to speak on anyone else's healthcare system, but it is interesting from an outsider's point of vie,w wanting to give care to all the people who need it. It's quite tough for any character, and I think that's in the original show as well. There are situations where doctors want to help someone, and they're just told they're not allowed to, or for some reason they can't, and that must be really tough.

Ava, how did you approach Tosh aside from the script? Was there anyone who influenced you, or did you follow any influencer in general? How did she fit into this new paradigm?

Bunn: First, my friend Sam, whose name [happens to also be] Sam, and he works with Cedars-Sinai, and right as I was getting the role, he was training to be a phlebotomist. I went and volunteered my veins, and I gave my blood to him. He's not an influencer, but he's one of the funniest people I know. And it's like…I think unless you have a doctor friend, you don't know what your doctors are like outside of work. I think hanging out with Sam and seeing that he's a full person outside of sticking a needle into people's veins. There's that, and then also there's this girl Hannah, who makes really good content online, and she's a surgeon. She is so cool and funny. I love watching her content, and she'll like fully make stuff before going into an insane surgery, and it's crazy to see the dichotomy of that. I hope I did it justice, yeah.

David, what's the most difficult part of balancing Blake's confidence with empathy?

Gridley: Great question. With Blake, showing empathy is a weakness, and it was such a fun role to play, because he gets humbled in these situations. He wants to appear as this confident, you know, alpha male type, like when he gets humble, then he goes through something that's intense and traumatic. He doesn't want to feel it, and he doesn't want to lean on the people around them. Throughout the series, you get a cool look at how he is broken down in that way, how his fellow interns come together, and the community aspect of these doctors working in a hospital. It's super cool to see him change throughout the season in that way.

Final question. What was it like hanging out on set, working with Bill and [showrunner] Aseem [Batra]? Did you all stay amongst yourselves, along with Layla [Mohammadi] and Amanda [Morrow], or did you all hang out with your older core cast of Zach, Donald, and Sarah as well?

Gridley: Yeah, we had a ton of time together. The interns did at first, and we took that time to hang out. Anytime somebody wanted to go out to eat or hang out, everybody jumped in together, and we all really hit it off amazingly well to the point to where you're like, "There's always a weird one in the group," so we all kind of went back and were like, "Am I the weird one?" Because everything's so cool, but like, go along. Yeah, like for my birthday, like all these guys, they know I'm a Star Wars fan. I see you're also a Star Wars fan. They got me this lightsaber [shows off].

Bunn: Yeah.

Gridley: It's not one of the cheap ones. I know you recognize this. [Bunn and Dudman laugh]. This just goes to show that we've really developed a family and the original cast members have done such a good job at inviting them to the family as well. Zach throws these Saturday night dinners where we all get together. It's been just really kind of a dream scenario for sure.

Bunn: Yeah, we almost became like co-dependent, not "almost." [Dudman and Gridley laugh]. We did, but it was like, "If I wasn't called into work, but I saw that other people were, I would ask to hop in the ride so that I could go to work and hang out with everyone, and wait around" If it was early, I'd be like, "Guys, could someone come with me?"

Dudman: Yeah, I think everyone had a situation at least once where either you weren't at work, or they'd wrapped you for the day, and we just decided to hang out on set just to be with our friends, and to see how the sausage gets made.

Gridley: Yeah. A cool part of it was we're all in a city we've never been in, so you just had each other as a family too, and it really made for a cool college-like experience.

Scrubs, which also stars Judy Reyes, Vanessa Bayer, Robert Maschio, and Joel Kim Booster, premieres with its first two episodes on February 25th on ABC and Hulu.

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