Zach Braff

Though moderately successful in his childhood and late teens, Braff opted to attend college at Northwestern University rather than making an immediate transition to a full-time career of pursuing roles in the wilds of Los Angeles. While at Northwestern, Braff wrote and directed several short films, among them Lionel on a Sunday, which fared successfully in the 1998 festival season. The young actor went on to co-star in Getting to Know You, an adaptation of various short stories penned by author Joyce Carol Oates, which won praise at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. After a role as a gay party-boy drug addict in The Broken Hearts Club (2000), which won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film, Braff auditioned for Scrubs; despite his prior experience, the sitcom undoubtedly became his breakout role.

Indeed, the Scrubs success helped Braff write, direct, and star in Garden State (2003) opposite Natalie Portman and Ian Holm. The "little Sundance film that could" of its particular year, Garden State became a major indie hit, as its look and sound resonated with the creeping-toward-maturity Gen-Y demographic to whom Braff was obviously appealing. His next role as the lead character in Disney's animated Chicken Little appealed to a younger crowd, but still banked some serious cash at the box office. Braff next appeared in the flesh in 2006's Tony Goldwyn romantic comedy The Last Kiss. The film, scripted by Crash's Paul Haggis, co-starred Casey Affleck, Tom Wilkinson, and Blythe Danner, and mined much of the same simultaneously sad and funny emotional ground explored in Garden State. It died a quick death at theaters as fans heeded the advice of critics who deemed it a more morose gloss on well-trod twentysomething angst. The actor's next film was the lighter romantic-triangle comedy The Ex. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide