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Scrubs: Eddie Leavy on Raffi's Future, D&D Throwback, Welcoming Set

Scrubs star Eddie Leavy (A.P. Bio) discussed how Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke welcomed him, D&D references, and much more.

Eddie Leavy is certainly living the dream as part of one of his favorite shows, Scrubs, as Sacred Heart's IT specialist Raffi, making his debut in "My Rom-Com," the third episode of the revival. The episode features Elliot's (Sarah Chalke) ongoing struggle with her ex-husband, JD (Zach Braff), now the hospital's Chief of Medicine, who undermines the system she has with her patients. As JD adjusts to his new role and acts more strictly due to ongoing budget and efficiency issues, the two bump heads again regarding a potentially terminally ill patient (Meagen Fay), who would rather face death than live her life with a device that keeps her heart in check. Once Sibby (Vanessa Bayer) discovers she has a husband (Alan Blumenfeld), the two try to reunite the estranged couple, but they deal with public transportation and traffic. Carla (Judy Reyes) conspires with Elliot to stage a way to slow down the discharge process that JD insists on by getting Elliot to visit Raffi, who implements a software update that slows Sacred Heart operations to manual charts.

Trying to get to the root of the problem, JD talks to Turk (Donald Faison), who introduces him to Raffi as the truth starts to come out. As punishment, Turk pulls rank as a Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master and revokes one of Raffi's items before he and JD head out of Raffi's room. In part two, Leavy spoke to Bleeding Cool about Raffi's future, how welcoming the Scrubs family is, working with showrunner Aseem Batra and stars/EPs Braff, Faison, and Chalke, and how D&D was a last-second addition that ties into Raffi and Turk. The following contains minor spoilers.

Scrubs: Eddie Leavy on Welcoming Series Family, Raffi's Future, D&D & More

Are you in any of the further episodes beyond episode three?

Yes, I am. Yes, I'm a computer maniac, and it is a recurring role.

One of the best things about the show is the recurring characters. I mean, some of the other characters already introduced are Sibby, the interns, and it's one of those things that was a strength when the original show aired. With the revival, there's, of course, a new generation with a new batch of recurring characters. I thought, "Okay, I see your character on screen, and you've got those little tropes going." I definitely see the potential, and I'm looking forward to seeing what develops. I liked right off the bat that Dungeons & Dragons was a first thing from the original Scrubs season four episode that was referenced, because JD is an 8th-level ogre Magi. Now we find out that you're part of Turk's game, which he hosts as a dungeon master. I'm hoping to see, if it's not this season, maybe next season, perhaps we get to see that play out, and you get to have a table where Turk's DMing, you're there playing in, and whoever else beyond forward there.

Yeah, and I would love that. I really hope the show continues beyond this season. I am really excited, it's a great moment as an actor when you read a script, and Raffi says in his first episode, "Lots of things are wrong with me. That's why they can't fire me," because I'm like, "Okay, this character will hopefully be around," but that's what's so beautiful about being on the show. The writers on Scrubs are so brilliant at creating a full world with so many different characters.

What the first Scrubs taught us is that there's so much potential and room to grow for the actors on the show. What might start off as one episode here or one episode there can really grow over the years. I'm so honored again to be in the Bill Lawrence-Aseem Batra universe of the show. I feel like there's so much potential for so many of these characters. Shout out to Michael James Scott and X Mayo with those characters [of nurses Dubois and Raymond], I think we're going to see a lot more fun stuff from them.

As an actor, and this is how it was in my previous show, I had one line in the pilot of A.P. Bio, and there was again so much room to grow for my character [Anthony] that by season two and three, I was getting full storylines and on billboards. It's really cool to maybe start off in terms of the different character dynamics, but start off, maybe as a less prominent character [and later expand], but again, there's so much to grow in this fun universe that the writers have created.

Going in, what were your first impressions of Zach and Donald? Was it everything you imagined, sharing scenes with them? Was there anyone you regularly interacted with behind the scenes?

Honestly, I talked to everybody. Everyone was so kind, lovely, and generous to me. It was such a beautiful balance of…we had a job to do. We were on set making this TV show, and there was a lot of responsibility to deliver for the people who love and cherish the show. I had incredible conversations with Zach, Donald, Sarah [Chalke], and our amazing director, Chris [Koch], and the writer, Matthew [Harawitz]. We were having fun, and I remember in that first scene with Donald and Zach partway through, there was like, "Okay, we have an alternate version of this scene. Can you go take some time and look this over and learn it?"

That's when some of the different language came in with the Dungeons & Dragons, and whatnot. It was such a great challenge as an actor to, again, be to be given that responsibility to be like, "OK, we're going to play. We're going to do a different version, add some lines, and go to this." It was honestly a dream, and everyone from the cast and crew was so efficient. It was one of the fastest-moving sets I've ever been on. There was very little waiting around. I had that moment of, "Oh, my God! I can't believe I'm here! I can't believe I bought this set of Scrubs with these like comedy legends!" Immediately, I'm greeted with a huge hug from Zach, Donald, and Sarah. It's like, "Oh, this already feels like home," and then, every time I was able to go back, I got more comfortable with my role being there.

New episodes of Scrubs, which also stars Ava Bunn, Jacob Dudman, David Gridley, Layla Mohammadi, and Amanda Morrow, air Wednesdays on ABC and are available to stream the following day.

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