Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s friendship has never flatlined.
However, Braff shared that the longtime pals have gotten into “big fights” since first meeting on “Scrubs” in 2001.
On Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Braff reflected on the time Faison arrived late to record their “Scrubs” rewatch podcast and didn’t apologize.
“He was like a half hour late. We do it on Zoom and he showed up — he didn’t say, like, sorry. He goes, ‘Oh, y’all mad?’” the actor, 50, recounted.
Braff explained that Faison, 51, is “often late to things.”
The “Clueless” alum, who also appeared on the late-night talk show, interjected, saying he was only “three minutes late.”
“That’s not true at all,” Braff clapped back. “And then we got into a big fight and the engineer recorded the whole thing and we were like, ‘We can’t. We gotta cut and just regroup tomorrow.’ And so we told the fans, but we didn’t release the fight. And the fans of our podcast always said, ‘Release the fight. Release the fight.’”
“Well, they should know that the fight was about me being three minutes late then. That’s the thing,” Faison chimed in, before Kimmel, 58, urged the duo to “absolutely” release this behind-the-scenes recording.
Faison and Braff, however, made it clear they would “never” release the squabble.
As Braff put it: “Words were said, Jimmy, that can’t be taken back. It got heated.”
“We said some things,” Faison concurred.
When Kimmel asked if he could be the one to listen to the recording, Faison jokingly said, “Absolutely.”
But the argument was “totally trivial,” he added.
Braff himself thinks the fight is “hilarious because it’s like a married couple having a tiff.” And it makes sense, considering Faison “hasn’t apologized in 25 years for anything,” according to Braff.
Braff and Faison started their podcast in 2020, and revisit the original show, which initially aired for 182 episodes for nine seasons between 2001 and 2010.
After 16 years off air, “Scrubs” returned with a tenth season that premiered on Feb. 25.
The medical comedy’s original characters, including J.D. (Braff), Christopher Turk (Faison), Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes) and Jordan Sullivan (Christa Miller), have all been resuscitated.
Newcomers Vanessa Bayer, Joel Kim Booster, David Gridley, Ava Bunn, Jacob Dudman, Layla Mohammadi and Amanda Morrow have also joined the mix.
In December, Booster, 37, reflected on being part of the iconic show.
“I think there’s so much pressure on Zach and the rest of the OG crew and the OG writers and producers that came back for it because, listen, the fanbase is loud and powerful and knows what they want to see,” the comedian told The Post at the time.
“They want to see the show return to its roots, and I think that we really accomplished that.”
“It really is all the things that I loved about the show in its early seasons are they’re really circling back and they’re finding new ways to tell stories that also stay true to the tone of the original,” Booster continued. “I think they’ve struck the perfect balance of servicing all of those old elements that the fans fell in love with in the first place, while introducing a lot of new elements that make the show feel fresh and and current.”
During its initial run, “Scrubs” earned 17 Emmy nominations and four Golden Globe nods.
The NBC sitcom, which moved to ABC after Season 7, took home an Emmy in 2005 for Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing for a Series and again in 2007 for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series.
“Zach says, for him, the comedy has to be key, but the comedy has to be grounded in something real. And that is the strength of this show,” Booster continued. “That there is a sentimentality to it. There is an absurd humor.”
Reflecting on the show’s iconic fantasy sequences, the “Loot” actor shared that “they’re all rooted in a real emotion, a real want, a real grounded sense of humanity that all of the characters at their core, even the biggest, sort of craziest ones at their core, have something that’s grounding them to a real recognizable humanity.”
That pearl of wisdom is what he’s “taken away from this experience.”
“Remembering that, yes, we want to tell a really great joke,” said Booster, “but it has to be recognizably real for it to hit us.”
New episodes of “Scrubs” air on ABC Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Episodes can also be streamed on Hulu the next day.
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