Zach Braff: He's "Chicken"

You might know him as doc J.D. on the TV hit "Scrubs", a role which has recently garnered actor Zach Braff an Emmy nomination, or from his lead role in the popular film Garden State co-starring Natalie Portman which Zach also wrote and directed. Now, Zach is a chicken...or at least the voice of one. Braff voices adorable Chicken Little for the new Disney animated film which is the first fully computer animated feature for the studio.

Journalists recently got to tour the new computer animation unit on the Disney lot. Inside a building topped off by a giant Mickey Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice hat, you can expect things to be a little magical and they are. After talking to animators in their offices and seeing how the film was developed and produced, reporters got to sit in a glass room opposite some whimsical posters from the new film and talk to Zach, who was weekend casual in brown and orange tennies, jeans, tee and running jacket. The actor told us about his animated voice role, his work on "Scrubs" and upcoming projects...

TeenHollywood: How did you come up with the voice? Did you see the finished version of the Chicken Little character?

Zach: Yeah. When I first started, that's what I saw, a little black and white sketch of him. I didn't want to do just my voice. I kind of wanted to do some sort of character-y thing. I basically just thought of what a little boy would sound like. We tried out a bunch of different things when I was cast. He's a little boy this big essentially, so I was just trying out 10 different things and that's what we settled on.

TeenHollywood: Did you worry about being too cute?

Zach: [laughs] It's hard for me to not be extraordinarily cute. I had to fight it.

TeenHollywood: Like adding a little lisp?

Zach: Yeah. No, because he's such a goofball, you didn't want him to be too annoying. That's the line. You wanted him to be endearing because he's such a klutz. But you didn't want it to get grating, so the trick was to find some sort of voice that made him endearing and sweet.

TeenHollywood: How much of a strain on your voice was it to alter it?

Zach: Not much but I'd joke with the filmmakers. I would say, 'Can I please have a line without an exclamation point?' Once the movie gets going, there's so much action adventure that it's all yelling. So when there was big yelling stuff we would save it for the end of the session because that would wear your voice out.

TeenHollywood: Was it nice to have so much time to develop a character?

Zach: It's definitely an interesting process to work on something this long. For me, really the development of the character to be honest falls in the hands of the animator and the director in this medium. I'm just coming in and doing exactly what they tell me to in terms of the voice and what's going on in the scene. Really the arcs are all in their hands.

TeenHollywood: You are used to acting with an ensemble of actors on "Scrubs" so is voice recording lonely for you?

Zach: Yeah, you're in a booth. With the one exception in this movie that, when Gary Marshall [who plays Chicken Little's dad] and I did our stuff, they set up two booths so we could look at each other and interact with each other. Which was good because Gary's a wonderful improv actor and I was able to keep up with him. But yeah, for the most part, it's you alone in a sound booth just recording.

TeenHollywood: It takes a long time to get an animated film made. Had you done Garden State already when you recorded the voice for this?

Zach: This I've been doing for two years so it overlapped with Garden State.

TeenHollywood: Did becoming a director on your own film affect your take on giving a voice reading?

Zach: No. I know nothing about this world at all, so I really yielded to them. And they're wonderfully collaborative. One thing is you would do it every single possible way. If the line is 'Here we go', you're going to say 'Here we go' 100 times. When they get into the editing room, they've got every possible way a human being can say 'Here we go'.

TeenHollywood: Did you ever think when you started "Scrubs" that you'd be a movie star and cartoon voice?

Zach: No. When I started that quirky medical show, I had just quit being a waiter, so I was just happy that, from the money from the pilot, I wasn't going to have to wait tables at least for a couple months.

TeenHollywood: How old is Chicken Little?

Zach: I don't know if we ever discussed his age. I think he's in Junior High, so I don't know. I would say maybe he's just before his Bar Mitzvah. 11 or 12.

TeenHollywood: How did Disney think of you for the role?

Zach: I auditioned. I put it out there that I wanted to do this and this was such a big project for Disney that people auditioned and I was definitely someone who auditioned and campaigned to get it.

TeenHollywood: Was it because other big actors were doing voices, or did you always want to do a voice?

Zach: I think it's an honor. This is Disney, 70 years of animation and yesterday I was saying to a reporter, 'As an American, we grew up on this.' She corrected me, she was a foreigner, and she said, 'No, the world has grown up on these.' And that's true. I thought it was something unique and special to be a part of the tradition of being a Disney character. I didn't imagine I'd get the main title character in one. I thought I'd just be [some character saying] 'What's up, Chicken Little? See you at the game'.

TeenHollywood: Looking at the film, do you see yourself in the little character?

Zach: Yeah, I see in gestures because they videotape you when you're doing the voices, so there are certain gestures and facial expressions in certain scenes that I can see are mine.

TeenHollywood: Have you done voices for Chicken Little toys?

Zach: I've done a bunch of 'em. The video game is me. I had a plush toy. Some other thing. I've been doing them all, almost all of them.

TeenHollywood: Do you ever stop and say, 'I don't think that toy is appropriate'?

Zach: Well, the Chicken Little kids' cell phone, I don't know how that ties in.

TeenHollywood: Is that you singing on the soundtrack? "Chicken" sings Queen's 'We Are the Champions".

Zach: Yeah. Everyone sang and Garry too.

TeenHollywood: Did they tell you to sing like a kid?

Zach: Well, when I sing 'We Are the Champions', they told me that it needs to be so bad that it sets car alarms off. The director just said 'sing bad'. He said as bad as you can. And I'm not a great singer but I can carry a tune, so it was hard for me to be like, 'Really? That bad? People are going to think I have the worst voice'.

TeenHollywood: You don't.

Zach: I appreciate that, but it was setting off car alarms in Oaky Oaks.

TeenHollywood: What is it about 'Scrubs' that makes it so successful?

Zach: It has found such a really loyal core audience. You have to like comedy that moves fast. A lot of people understandably get home from a hard day's work and they want to just watch a dumb sitcom where they don't have to think. The jokes are there and if you don't know you're supposed to laugh, the audience laughs for you and oh, that's when I'm supposed to laugh. 'Scrubs' moves so fast it requires of you to think a little bit. It's a little bit of a puzzle and it's very fast and we like to think smart. I don't know. I love it. It makes me laugh. I think it's sort of a 'Simpsons' audience too. Sometimes it just feels like a live action 'Simpsons'.

TeenHollywood: Has NBC made a decision about bringing it back?

Zach: They're going to air the shows. They bought a full season. We're six episodes in, seven episodes in. I think what happened was NBC wanted to launch their new comedies, so they wanted to put their new comedies in juicy time slots and help them out. So as some of them do well and some of them don't, when the ones that don't go away, I think we'll come in as a replacement. We're definitely not getting treated like the favorite child.

TeenHollywood: Has your character J.D. evolved?

Zach: Well, in the beginning the joke was he didn't know anything and he was so in over his head. In the pilot he was afraid to take blood. So now, actually he's become quite a competent doctor. It's important to the show's creator Bill Lawrence that the audience gets that J.D. is actually a really good doctor. But his insecurity in relationships and his goofiness gets him in the way of operating in the hospital. Over the four years he's become quite an adept doctor but he's still not as suave with the ladies and with his friends.

TeenHollywood: Will you direct any episodes?

Zach: I directed two last year and I'm directing three this year.

TeenHollywood: And you've made more films. Tell us about them.

Zach: Next year will be The Last Kiss which is an adaptation of an Italian film and that's a big ensemble movie with myself and Casey Affleck, Rachel Bilson, Jacinda Barrett, Blythe Danner, Tom Wilkinson. And then I did a fun comedy, almost like an 'Office Space' kind of movie called Fast Track. That's myself and Jason Bateman as my nemesis. And Charles Grodin and Mia Farrow and Amanda Peet.

TeenHollywood: Are you writing anything else to direct?

Zach: I am and I'm not. I have the ideas in my head, but just to give you an example, I shoot 14 hours a day on 'Scrub's and on the weekends, I come to talk to the press. So I'm not exactly just chillin' by my laptop with a cup of coffee writing. But I also would like to say that I don't want to be one of those directors who just directs because he can or someone will let him. There's been a lot of opportunities that I've passed on because I want my next film to be as important to me as Garden State was.

TeenHollywood: Is it easier to secure financing now since Garden State was pretty successful?

Zach: Yeah. Easier is not saying much because I couldn't find anyone to give me 50 bucks for Garden State. But now there's plenty of people that are interested in doing it.

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.