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. His paternal great-grandfather was from Donegal, Ireland. McGinley was raised in Millburn, New Jersey, and attended Millburn High School, where he played wide receiver for the school's football team. 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. 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, 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. He appeared in the "Celebrity Challenge" version of American Gladiators, losing to Dean Cain. McGinley wrote the script for 1990s Suffering Bastards, 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."
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. In 2008, McGinley was the narrator of the documentary of the Detroit Red Wings' 2008 Stanley Cup Championship. 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.
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. 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. The series was canceled in 2015 after two seasons.
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. 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. They have two daughters together: Billie, born in 2008 and Kate, born in 2010.
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.
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.
McGinley appeared on the television show American Gladiators in 1994, during the Celebrity Challenge.
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", 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.
Filmography
Television work
Awards and nominations
References
External links
- John C. McGinley at the Internet Movie Database
- John C. McGinley at the Internet Broadway Database
- John C. McGinley at AllMovie