Roles in Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, The Rock and Nothing to Lose (along with dozens more) flooded McGinley’s resume as he began to become a solid Hollywood actor. With Office Space, he auditioned for the movie just like everyone else, but it didn’t hurt that he was surfer buddies with Mike Judge prior to filming. McGinley originally auditioned for the part of Bill Lumburgh, but Judge decided he would better fit the role of Bob Slydell, the crafty auditor who goes on a firing spree at Initech with his partner Bob Porter.
The friendship with Judge was so solid that when McGinley told him that he got a role in "Three to Tango" and needed to begin filming very soon and couldn’t film for very long, Judge rearranged the entire Office Space schedule just to fit McGinley’s itinerary.
"I was originally supposed to be there for two or three weeks, but then I got this other gig in Toronto called ‘Three to Tango,’ so I called Mike and said that I could only work Monday to Thursday and then he did a pretty unheard thing," McGinley says. "They switched the whole schedule to accommodate shooting me in, so that kind of speaks volumes about Mike. We just got in there and started hitting it around. They cut me a lot of slack with that character."
McGinley’s wit, drive for humor, and determination as an actor helped create one half of the Bobs. The way he crafted the character was insanely funny, even though he wasn’t a huge part of the film. The Bob’s shooting ended up taking only a week, but that week was one of McGinley’s favorite experiences with a movie.
"Just for three days burning as much film as we did and letting Mike find it on the editing machine was incredible," McGinley says. "We shot a ton and ton of stuff, and then before you knew it I was gone. It was kind of the John McGinley show for three days and that’s a really indulgent unbelievably wonderful creative environment to work in."
Even though McGinley wasn’t around the cast for the entire filming of the movie, the experience he had still ranks up with the best of them.
"It was a fun experience," McGinley says. "You could do no wrong with that character. He is kind of investigating so I got to investigate the character as we went a long. The whole Michael Bolton thing was just as fun as it gets. It worked on the page and then when I put it in my mouth and started playing with it, the downside of it was the greatest thing in the world."
Unfortunately for the cast of Office Space, the success it had at the domestic box office was minimal, as the movie collected far less than anticipated. The marketing of the movie was of such a poor quality, that the movie was never given the correct mojo to really take off. McGinley was not happy with this.
"When I first went to see the movie and I thought it was hilarious," McGinley says. "And then the film tanked, totally tanked. And I was really upset because I thought it was a genuinely hilarious really subversive comedy that I thought was great. And some jackass in marketing over at Fox put a big bird, a guy with Postits on him that looked like fucking big bird. I thought that ultimately led to its demise. If you want to see a movie about big bird, that’s one thing, but Office Space is something else.
"I was hugely upset about this, but somehow people found it. I just figured people left it for dead, but somehow it got to be this cult thing and honest to God I don’t know how. If domestic box-office is any indicator it should have just faded into the night. It’s a monster now.
"But when it tanked, I was just like, I must not be on the same wavelength as everyone else. I wasn’t there for most of the movie, so it was all fresh to me and when I went and saw it in the movie theater I was dying and I was like I must not be in sync with everyone else. I kind of questioned my own taste."
And now, after taking off as a cult classic, McGinley feels it is finally getting the respect the movie deserves in his mind. "I love that movie. I can watch it over and over," he says.
Life after Office Space, Putting on the Scrubs McGinley’s career has continued at a steady pace since his days as Bob Slydell in Office Space. He has acted in thirteen different movies and TV shows since 1999, including parts in Any Given Sunday, Get Carter, The Animal, Summer Catch, Stealing Harvard, Identity and his pride and joy, Scrubs, where he played the role of Dr. Perry Cox.
"This particular show is the dream gig of all time," McGinley says. "The guy who runs it has fostered an environment where people can creatively survive. It’s similar to the environment that Mike Judge created down in Austin for Office Space. It’s a place where you can creatively exercise as aggressively or wildly as you want. Whatever you do winds up in the show. The hardest thing to do in this business is to maintain, so I would really like to grind this thing for a while."
Photos courtesy of John C. McGinley and 20th Century Fox
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