John C. McGinley

John C. McGinley
McGinley at the UCD Law Society, October 2008.
Born	John Christopher McGinley (1959-08-03) August 3, 1959 New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	John C. Mc Ginley John McGinley
Occupation	Actor, author
Years active	1985–present
Spouse(s)	Lauren Lambert (1997–2001) Nicole Kessler (2007–present)
Children	3

John Christopher McGinley (born August 3, 1959) is an American actor, author and former comedian. He is most notable for his roles as Perry Cox in Scrubs, Bob Slydell in Office Space, Captain Hendrix in The Rock, Sergeant Red O'Neill in Oliver Stone's Platoon and Marv in Stone's Wall Street. He has also written and produced for television and film. Apart from acting, McGinley is also an author, a board member and international spokesperson for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, and a spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome Society.

Early life

McGinley, who is one of five children, was born in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, the son of a schoolteacher and a stockbroker.^[1] His paternal great-grandfather was from Donegal, Ireland.^[2] McGinley was raised in Millburn, New Jersey, and attended Millburn High School, where he played wide receiver for the school's football team.^[3] He studied acting at Syracuse University, and later at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1984.^[4] Upon completing his education, McGinley did a variety of different work, including Off Broadway and Broadway productions, and a two-year stint on the soap opera Another World.

Career

McGinley has had a prolific career, primarily as a supporting character actor. He was noticed by a casting scout while working as John Turturro's understudy in John Patrick Shanley's 1984 production of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,^[5] which led to a successful audition for the role of Sergeant Red O'Neill in the Oscar-winning Platoon (1986). McGinley had been cast in his first film role in Alan Alda's Sweet Liberty earlier in 1986. That was followed the next year with Wall Street (1987), and again the next with Talk Radio (1988). He also was featured in a 1980s Subaru commercial.^[6] He appeared in the "Celebrity Challenge" version of American Gladiators, losing to Dean Cain. McGinley wrote the script for 1990s Suffering Bastards,^[7] in which he also co-starred.

He worked continually throughout the 1990s, appearing in films such as Point Break (1991), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Article 99 (1992), Wagons East! (1994), Seven (1995), The Rock (1996), Set It Off (1996), Nothing to Lose (1997) and Office Space (1999) (McGinley improvised several takes about his character's fondness for Michael Bolton). In 2007, he had a role as Chuck in the film Are We Done Yet?. He also had a small role as a gay highway patrolman in the film Wild Hogs.

McGinley has done voice-over work on animated television series, including the superhero The Atom on several episodes of Justice League Unlimited, a guest appearance as "The White Shadow", the secret government agent overseeing Huey Freeman on The Boondocks, voicing The Whammer on the PBS Kids Go! series WordGirl as well as the lead character in the Sony PSP video game Dead Head Fred.

McGinley received critical acclaim for his performance as a serial killer in Dean Koontz's suspense drama, Intensity (1997). It became Fox Television's highest-rated miniseries. He worked with Koontz and Fox once more in Sole Survivor (2000).

In 2001, McGinley began work as a regular on the NBC television series Scrubs as the acerbic Dr. Perry Cox. Throughout the series Dr. Cox acts as an unwilling mentor to the protagonist J.D. (Zach Braff). McGinley has said that there are three things over the course of the series that he improvises: his constant usage of girls' names for JD, which he does with all his real friends; his whistle, which he describes as "a bad habit"; and his habit of touching his nose, a tribute to Robert Redford's character in The Sting; he says the gesture means "It's gonna be OK."^[8]

Since the NFL season of 2007, McGinley has played the "Commish" of the More Taste League commercials for Miller Lite. He has also done commercials for the Champions Tour, a professional golf tour for men over the age of 50.^[9] In 2008, McGinley was the narrator of the documentary of the Detroit Red Wings' 2008 Stanley Cup Championship.^[10] In 2009, McGinley started narrating commercials for ESPN.com.

McGinley wrote a 2005 book titled, Untalkative Bunny: How to be Heard Without saying a Word which featured the title character from the show Untalkative Bunny on its cover.

In 2008, McGinley was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.

Recently, he was cast in the film adaptation of the comic book Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, and he plays the role of the classic Superman villain, Metallo.^[11]

In 2012, it was announced that McGinley will be a recurring character on USA Network's Burn Notice as Michael Westen's original CIA trainer, Tom Card.^[12] He was first introduced in the second episode of the show's sixth season.

Also in 2012, he appeared in a State Farm insurance commercial as a father wanting his college graduate son to move out. Using the State Farm magic, he and his wife turn his son's room into a spa, a dojo, and a steam room.

He began 2013 in the Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross as Dave Moss, alongside Al Pacino, Bobby Cannavale, Richard Schiff, David Harbour, and Jeremy Shamos.

In 2013, it was announced that TBS made a series order for the television series Ground Floor, which stars McGinley.

In October 2014, McGinley hosted The E Street Radio channel on Sirius XM20 radio, discussing his appreciation of Bruce Springsteen's music, and their shared New Jersey roots.

Personal life

In February 1997, McGinley married Lauren Lambert. Their son, Max, who has Down Syndrome, was born that year. In December 2001, Lambert and McGinley divorced. In October 2002, he was chosen as "Dad of the Month" at iParenting.com.^[13] In August 2006, McGinley became engaged to yoga instructor Nichole Kessler in Malibu, whom he had dated for two years. The couple married on April 7, 2007 in a private ceremony at their home.^[14] They have two daughters together: Billie, born in 2008 and Kate, born in 2010.^[15]

McGinley owns a stake in one of Billy Gilroy's New York SoHo bistros, along with fellow actor Willem Dafoe. He is a close friend of John Cusack, with whom he likes to play golf.^[16]

McGinley serves on the Board of The Global Down Syndrome Foundation (based in Denver). He is a celebrity Ambassador for the National Down Syndrome Society. In addition, he is a Global Ambassador for Special Olympics and was an integral part in crafting Special Olympics' "R-word: Spread The Word, To End The Word" campaign. McGinley is a vocal supporter for the special needs community, and commented in late 2011 on the experience of raising a teenager with Down syndrome along with two young daughters:

Half the gene pool that spawned Max also spawned Billie, my soon-to-be-four-year-old, so I'm hypersensitive to any challenges she may have. [Kate, at 17 months old, is too young for school.] We've discovered that Billie can completely disengage, which troubled Nicole and I, so we took her to an early-education interventionist. She tested our daughter primarily by giving her tactical puzzles. As long as Billie was left alone to do them, she was fine. But when the teacher tried to give Billie praise, she was not interested. What this revealed is that Billie is fine as long as she is engaged in an activity, but she doesn't care for the traditional approval or an A, B or C grade. Our takeaway is that Billie is fine and that we'll have to find ways, people, systems, etc., that challenge her, because she doesn't care about kudos.

Her biggest strength is language. She's extraordinarily verbal, and Max's biggest challenge is his lack of spoken language. He can read at a certain level and do arithmetic, but he doesn't form sentences. So parenting Max and parenting Billie represent two polar opposites on the spoken-word spectrum. How we parent them in the same household and find a happy middle has been really interesting and continues to be.^[17]

McGinley's nephew, former Syracuse lacrosse player Hayes McGinley, made news when he was beaten following a drunken altercation in New York.

McGinley appeared on the television show American Gladiators in 1994, during the Celebrity Challenge.^[18]

McGinley is also an avid fan of the NHL Detroit Red Wings, and shows this by wearing a Red Wings jersey (usually Chris Chelios') in several Scrubs episodes. He was the narrator of the Red Wings' 2008 Championship DVD. McGinley maintains a home in Malibu, California, and is well known as a member of the "Malibu Mob",^[19] a group of celebrity friends and neighbors including John Cusack, Tony Danza, former Detroit Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios, big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton, beach volleyball pro Gabrielle Reece, and tennis player John McEnroe.^[20]

Filmography

Film work

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1986	Sweet Liberty	Floyd
1986	Platoon	Sergeant O'Neill
1987	Wall Street	Marvin
1988	Talk Radio	Stu
1988	Shakedown	Sean Phillips
1989	Lost Angels	Dr. Farmer
1989	Born on the Fourth of July	Official #1 – Democratic Convention, Pushing Wheelchair
1989	Fat Man and Little Boy	Capt. Richard Schoenfield, MD
1989	Suffering Bastards	Buddy Johnson	Writer
1991	Point Break	FBI Agent Ben Harp
1991	Highlander II: The Quickening	David Blake
1992	Article 99	Dr. Rudy Bobrick
1992	Cruel Doubt	Attorney Jim Vos Burgh
1992	A Midnight Clear	Major Griffin
1993	Hear No Evil	Mickey O'Malley
1993	Watch It	Rick	Producer
1994	On Deadly Ground	MacGruder
1994	Surviving the Game	John Griffin
1994	Car 54, Where Are You?	Officer Francis Muldoon
1994	Wagons East!	Julian Rogers
1995	Born to Be Wild	Max Carr
1995	Seven	California (SWAT leader)
1995	Nixon	Earl in Training Film
1996	Rock, TheThe Rock	Marine Captain Hendrix
1996	Set It Off	Detective Strode
1997	Flypaper	Joe
1997	Colin Fitz Lives!	Colin Fitz
1997	Intensity	Edgler Foreman Vess
1997	Truth or Consequences, N.M.	Eddie Grillo
1997	Nothing to Lose	Davis 'Rig' Lanlow
1998	Target Earth	Agent Vincent Naples
1999	Office Space	Bob Slydell
1999	Any Given Sunday	Jack Rose
1999	Three to Tango	Strauss
1999	Jack Bull, TheThe Jack Bull	Woody
2000	Get Carter	Con McCarty
2001	Summer Catch	Hugh Alexander	Uncredited
2001	Animal, TheThe Animal	Sgt. Sisk
2002	Stealing Harvard	Detective Charles
2002	Highway	Johnny the Fox
2002	Crazy as Hell	Parker
2002	It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie	Himself
2003	Identity	George York
2005	Alien Planet	Narrator
2006	Puff, Puff, Pass	Jerry Dupree
2006	A.W.O.L.	Garris
2006	Two Tickets to Paradise	Mark	Won - Method Fest - Festival Directors Award
2007	Wild Hogs	Gay Highway Patrolman
2007	Are We Done Yet?	Chuck Mitchell Jr.
2008	American Crude	Jim
2009	Life's a Trip	Mark Hewson
2009	Superman/Batman: Public Enemies	John Corben / Metallo (Voice)	Direct-to-video
2012	Alex Cross	Richard Brookwell
2013	42	Red Barber
2014	Kid Cannabis	John Grefard

Television work

Television work

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1985–1986	Another World	Ned	Unknown episodes
1988	Spenser: For Hire	K.C.	1 episode
1993	Last Outlaw, TheThe Last Outlaw	Wills	Television film
1994	Frasier	Danny Kriezel	Episode: "Seat of Power"
1997	Practice, TheThe Practice	Atty. Leonard Goode	2 episodes
1997	Intensity	Edgler Foreman Vess	Television film
1998	Pentagon Wars, TheThe Pentagon Wars	Col. J.D. Bock	Television film
2000	Sole Survivor	Victor Yates	Television film
2001–2010	Scrubs	Dr. Perry Cox	179 episodes Series Regular Nominated - TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy (2002) Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy (2002)
2002	Clone High	Doug Prepcourse (Voice)	1 episode
2003	Kim Possible	Rudolph "White Stripe" Farnsworth (Voice)	1 episode
2003	Spider-Man: The New Animated Series	Richard Damien (Voice)	2 episodes
2003.1 !2003–2005	Justice League Unlimited	The Atom (Voice)	4 episodes
2005	Alien Planet	Narrator
2006–2010	Boondocks, TheThe Boondocks	The White Shadow (Voice)	2 episodes
2008–present	WordGirl	The Whammer (Voice)	4 episodes
2011	Dan Vs.	Imposter Dan (voice)	2 episodes
2012	Burn Notice	Tom Card	6 episodes
2013–2015	Ground Floor	Remington Stewart Mansfield	Series regular

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2002	Television Critics Association Awards	Individual Achievement in Comedy	Scrubs	Nominated
	Online Film & Television Association Award	Best Actor in a New Comedy Series		Won
		Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series		Won
2003	Satellite Awards	Best Performance by an Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical		Nominated
2006	Method Fest	Festival Director's Award	Two Tickets to Paradise	Won

References

External links

• John C. McGinley at the Internet Movie Database
• John C. McGinley at the Internet Broadway Database
• John C. McGinley at AllMovie