Christa Miller and Bill Lawrence Interview
How do you play in Andromeda Strain?
Christa Miller: “A very serious doctor, not funny at all, so that was very serious. Someone said to me the other day, ‘You're just so serious.’ So that's a very serious biologist doctor.”
Is it harder to say serious medical stuff than funny medical stuff?
Christa Miller: “Yeah, it's much harder. It gets jumbled up on your tongue. I'm not used to saying things that…”
Bill Lawrence: “Are you saying that it's easy doing Scrubs?”
Christa Miller: “No, it's much harder doing comedy.”
Bill Lawrence: “That's what I thought you were going to say.”
Christa Miller: “But it's harder doing words that my husband doesn't write for me.”
Bill Lawrence: “Although you know the guy that wrote this won the Pulitzer Prize. Trying to give me props, it's like, ‘The last thing I wanted to do is read the words of a Pulitzer prize winner.’”
Christa Miller: “My husband just has a boy crush on Robert Schenkkan, the writer.”
Did you read the original book or see the movie?
Christa Miller: “I didn't, but I hear that the lead of the original movie is my neighbor, which is just random. It has nothing to do with anything.”
You didn't want to as research? It might have been distracting?
Christa Miller: “Yeah, I think it would have been distracting. And then I think it's quite different than the original, so I don’t even know if my character existed. I think it was a man in the previous movie, so I don't know if it would be that helpful to me.”
Had you done any green screen before?
Christa Miller: “I've done green screen before and it's always difficult, but you kind of have to laugh it off. You can't take yourself too seriously with green screen. You just kind of go, ‘Okay, that's what it is.’”
Are you more at home in drama or comedy?
Christa Miller: “I'm obviously at home at Scrubs because we're in our eighth season and it's a family there, but everyone in this group was fantastic and we had fun there too. I like doing both.”
Do you hang out with a lot of doctors then?
Christa Miller: “Well, my dad's a doctor - he's a surgeon - so he showed me how to use a scalpel and all those things because you didn't want to go up there and look like you don't know what you're doing. The only medical physical thing I had to do is do the scalpel properly twice.”
They're calling this the Scrubs finale. That's not the final finale, is it?
Christa Miller: “No, we're still shooting. I don't think I'm allowed to say anything more than that but I'm working next week, if that means anything.”
How does it feel to be back?
Christa Miller: “So fun. It's great to be back and also it's great to feel that we're not just going to be ending.”
Bill, if you want to jump back in, this isn't the final finale?
Bill Lawrence: “I wouldn't think so, because I came straight from work.”
So you have time to do what you intended as the series finale?
Bill Lawrence: “Yeah, man, we're making episodes all summer so we're doing more than what we intended. We just have to wait for a few hours to find out where it's going to be on.”
Did it end up being a bonus then to have extra time?
Bill Lawrence: “Both a bonus because I love working with the people and it's the greatest job on earth and a burden because it was cool to be headed towards the ending and to have to do more than those seven episodes we have outlined is tough writing the same show for eight years, but it's fun.”
What about the fantasy episode?
Bill Lawrence: “Our big fairy tale one for our kids.”
Christa Miller: “Yeah, it's great. It's really fantastic.”
Bill Lawrence: “She busted my chops and said I had to write an episode that our kids could watch. I don't know if you know, but apparently my sitcom is filth, according to my wife.”
Any guest stars?
Bill Lawrence: “This year, expect the greatest hits file. One of the things we do on Scrubs is that all the guest stars on the show have been, we call them friends of the family. They're cast friends and writer friends, so anybody that you liked in the past that we didn't kill off will be on the show again.”
What about the people we liked that you did kill?
Bill Lawrence: “I don't know how to bring back Brendan Fraser. He's dead, man. So is Nicole Sullivan. It's tough. It'd have to be in a fantasy or something, but we're going to try to get everybody that's been on the show back on the show.”
How many more high fives from The Todd?
Bill Lawrence: “Oh, are you kidding me? Every time the guy steps on set. He's not playing a character. That's his real shtick, man. You can't stop that guy. He'll be all over the place doing the same thing, I'm sure. There's legal stuff going on. They'll be allowed to say where Scrubs is on, or if it's on next year, within 48 hours. I'd imagine they probably have to wait until it's done airing on NBC which is tomorrow night. It's very weird being at work. It's like we work in a vacuum. We've been working for a couple months now.”
Additional Andromeda Strain Interviews: Daniel Dae Kim / Viola Davis / Eric McCormack
