Zach Braff has recalled a recent encounter at a Las Vegas nightclub in which Michael Fassbender destroyed his ego by mistaking him for Dax Shepard.
The Scrubs star, 50, aptly told the disheartening story on Shephard’s Armchair Expert podcast.
“I was grabbed by the shoulders by Michael Fassbender,” Braff recounted of their recent interaction, adding that before he could say anything, the “very handsome” Oscar-nominated 12 Years a Slave star said, “‘I love you.’ I go, ‘Oh my God.’ He goes, ‘I love your work. I love everything that you do... The s*** you make is f***ing awesome. I wish we could work together.’”
The praise initially left Braff feeling confident. “My ego is like here,” he said. At the time, the actor was with his Scrubs co-star Donald Faison, who he remembered was watching him proudly.
“And then [Fassbender] goes, ‘I mean, f***ing CHiPs, dude,’” he added. “I just felt my heart sink because now, not only is it about Dax, but I don’t know how to get out of this encounter. It’s so cringe.”
Shepard, 51, famously directed and starred in the critically derided 2017 comedy-action movie, alongside Michael Peña and his wife, Kristen Bell.
“Donald, being like my wife/wingman, is like, ‘No, man, this is Zach Braff...’ [Fassbender’s] face dropped, as embarrassing as it was,” Braff continued. “And then he starts to kind of back away like, ‘Oh man, you guys have the best night!’ And Donald goes, ‘No, no, no, you come back here.’ Like a proud wife.”
Faison went on to list some of Braff’s best-known credits, including Scrubs, Garden State, A Good Person and The Last Kiss.
“He’s just nodding and nodding, and then I’m like, Donald, let’s set him free, please. He backed away and that was it. I didn’t even make it out of the club. I was so embarrassed,” Braff said.
Last month, Braff and Faison reunited as Doctors J.D. and Tuck in the Scrubs reboot — 16 years after the nine-season sitcom concluded. A majority of the original cast, including Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes, Christa Miller and Robert Maschio, have also returned to the revival, along with fan-favorite recurring guest star Phill Lewis.
While critics highlighted that the revival did not drive the plot forward, The Independent’s Annabel Nugent insisted that that’s “exactly what makes this reboot so delightful.”
“Creator Bill Lawrence has thankfully spared Scrubs fans from turning the show into a cloying love-fest in the vein of his more recent hit Ted Lasso,” she wrote. “No, the Scrubs reboot is good because it treats the show like a hospital isolation room, sealed off from the algorithmic sprawl of modern TV and beating to the same earnest, goofy heart.”
