Posted in: ABC, Hulu, TV | Tagged: Scrubs
Eddie Leavy (A.P. Bio) discussed playing Sacred Heart IT specialist Raffi on ABC’s Scrubs revival, the show’s cultural impact, and much more.
Article Summary
- Eddie Leavy talks joining ABC’s Scrubs revival as IT specialist Raffi and his path to the role.
- Leavy reflects on Scrubs’ cultural impact and the unique, ahead-of-its-time Turk and JD friendship.
- Creating Raffi’s character was a collaborative process, blending costume, personality, and set design.
- Raffi’s IT office embodies his quirks, offering Leavy a perfect space to dive into the Scrubs universe.
Eddie Leavy has already thrived on TV comedy since bursting into the scene in 2013 with NBC’s Guys with Kids and Crowned. Since then, he’s appeared on several shows like Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, Netflix’s Best. Worst. Weekend. Ever., and his biggest role as Anthony on the Peacock school comedy A.P. Bio. It also happens to be through the Glenn Howerton-starred series on how he landed the role of Sacred Heart IT specialist Raffi on the ABC Scrubs revival, introduced in the latest episode “My Rom-Com.” The episode features Dr. Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), who’s still at odds with the new Chief of Medicine, who’s also her ex-husband, Dr. John “JD” Dorian (Zach Braff).
Exacerbating things is a patient (Meagen Fay) who’s not thrilled about having to live her life with a physical life-saving device, but is trying to stall a discharge as her estranged husband (Alan Blumenfeld) tries to make his way to her in hopes of changing her mind. Helping Elliot stall is Raffi, who implements a software update, forcing Sacred Heart to switch to paper charts. In part one of the interview, Leavy spoke to Bleeding Cool about how a series writer-turned-showrunner opened the door for the opportunity, how Scrubs was a learning experience when he started in Hollywood, how Braff’s JD and Donald Faison‘s Turk’s bromance was ahead of its time, and shaping Raffi’s world.
EDDIE LEAVY
Scrubs: Eddie Leavy on Aseem Batra, Creating Raffi’s World, Turk-JD Revolutionary Bromance, and More
How did you get involved with Scrubs, and did you watch the original series when it ran?
Of course, I was so familiar with the original series, and it’s a legacy show. It is something that means so much to so many people. I was a little young when it first came out, and I lived in a pretty strict household where my parents did not want me to watch anything that was a bit promiscuous [laughs], and they got away with a lot on that original show in the early 2000s. When I moved to LA, I took a pilot writing class, and one of the pilots we studied was the Scrubs pilot, because that original pilot was so well done. I remember watching it and being like, “Wait, this show is great!” So, from there, I continued watching it and ended up watching so many episodes.
Flash forward to today, and I’m on it. In terms of my journey onto the show, it was exciting, where I felt like it was out of the blue, but I got a call from the people at Scrubs, the showrunner, Aseem Batra, who was a writer on one of my previous shows, AP Bio. I guess Zach became familiar with my work on AP Bio, so I think the two of them together started thinking and brainstorming about me, and they called one day and said, “Hey, do you want to be on the show?” It was honestly beyond my wildest dreams that something like that would happen.
X MAYO, MICHAEL JAMES SCOTT, JUDY REYES, VANESSA BAYER
When you watched the original show, was there a character that you connected with most?
In the original show, I was always just so captivated by Carla (Judy Reyes) and Elliot. I always loved the girls, but in terms of just the dynamic between the characters, I think the friendship between JD and Turk was, looking back at it as an adult, so ahead of its time to see such a loving, vulnerable, open relationship between those two men on TV for so many years. We don’t see a lot of that today, so I think that’s why it’s so important for this show to be back, because there’s so much going on with men, male loneliness, and male friendship, and JD and Turk are models of how men can be friends, and what’s possible when it comes to male friendship. That dynamic is what I resonate with when I think about the show.
When they conceived Raffi for you, did you have any creative input on how he might carry himself, or did you work off the script they had?
I had such an incredible first fitting with the costume designer, because when they wrote the role, they weren’t sure aesthetically how he was going to look. In my first fitting, there were sort of three distinct directions that Raffi could go into, so I’m excited about where Allisa [Swanson], the costume designer on Scrubs, and I landed, because it was so indicative of who this character would be.
[Raffi’s] someone who loves a lot of lore, goes to work in his pajamas, and we’re going to hopefully see um him in these t-shirts with some fun slogans on it, so that first fitting felt so collaborative. I’m like, “Oh, where do we want this character to go? How does he feel?” There’s a really big difference between someone who’s wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt to work and someone who is in a sweater vest. I think that helped me find the character, so when I had my first day on set with Donald and Zach, I was like, “Okay, I get this. I’m ready to go, and we can have fun.”
MICHAEL JAMES SCOTT, JUDY REYES, VANESSA BAYER, SARAH CHALKE, X MAYO
In the IT area, you don’t really see much. Is it designed to be a confining space there? Did it feel a little claustrophobic with the setup there? Was there supposed to be more in that room?
Yeah, I think it is supposed to feel like a man cave [laughs]. Raffi has his interests, and he has, again, himself and Turk reference playing Dungeons & Dragons together. I think it’s supposed to feel a little claustrophobic, because I don’t think a lot of people in the hospital go in there unless they like absolutely have to. It’s a shrine to all the things that he loves. I thought the production designer and the set dressers, everybody on the crew. I walked into that office, and again, going back to your previous question of, “How did we find that character?” When I saw that office, I wanted to sit in it, and I remember I was in my trailer and I told one of the second ADs, I was like, “I just want to sit in that office. I want to be in Raffi’s world, and feel like him for a little while before the camera rolls.” All those pieces, all the other work that other people are doing, it all creates a character, and gives me as an actor an incredible foundation to become this part and play this part.
New episodes of Scrubs, which also stars Ava Bunn, Jacob Dudman, David Gridley, Layla Mohammadi, Amanda Morrow, X Mayo, Michael James Scott, and Vanessa Bayer, air Wednesdays on ABC and are available to stream the following day.
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