John McGinley

John Christopher McGinley (born August 3, 1959) is an American actor.

His best known roles include Perry Cox in Scrubs, Bob Slydell in Office Space, Captain Hendrix in The Rock, Sergeant Red O'Neill in Oliver Stone's Platoon, Marv in Stone's Wall Street, FBI agent Ben Harp in Point Break, and the serial killer Edgler Foreman Vess in the TV miniseries of Intensity, based on the novel by Dean Koontz.

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 was featured in a 1980s Subaru commercial.

He appeared in the "Celebrity Challenge" version of American Gladiators, losing to Dean Cain.

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.

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).

McGinley wrote the script for, and co-starred in, the 1990 film Suffering Bastards.

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).

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, and which he says means "It's gonna be OK."

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 2007, he had a role as Chuck in the film Are We Done Yet? He had a small role as a gay highway patrolman in the film Wild Hogs which co-stars his Article 99 co-star Ray Liotta, although they don't share any screen credit.

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.

Since the NFL season of 2007, McGinley has played the "Commish" of the More Taste League commercials for Miller Lite.

He has 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 2008 Stanley Cup Championship of the Detroit Red Wings.

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

In 2009, McGinley started narrating commercials for ESPN.com.

In 2009, he was cast in the film adaptation of the comic book Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, voicing Metallo.

In 2012, it was announced that McGinley would 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.

In the same year, he appeared in a State Farm insurance commercial as a father wanting his college graduate son to move out.

He began 2013 in the Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross as Dave Moss.

"It was the best couple of months of my life," he said.

In the same year, 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.

The series was canceled in 2015 after two seasons.

From 2016 to 2018, he starred in the horror comedy television series, Stan Against Evil on IFC.

McGinley played a crusty retired sheriff who reluctantly helps his perky replacement fight the demons that have taken over their small town.