How Zach Braff got through a bad time to make ‘A Good Person’

Characters who never fall down, never have to crawl and struggle to regain their emotional footing, hold little interest for Zach Braff.

The “Scrubs” TV alum’s four feature films — 2004’s “Garden State,” which he wrote when he was 25, 2014’s “Wish I Was Here,” 2017’s “Going in Style” and now “A Good Person,” in theaters March 24 — all reflect his preference for flawed individuals, ordinary people who get pitched a curveball that dramatically changes the game of life.

His protagonists don’t necessarily do the right or rational thing, but their actions ache with an authenticity often overlooked in major studio productions. It’s a calling card of Braff’s to highlight the unpredictable nature of people, a tradition he used to joke about when he was on the celebrated hospital sitcom, which ran for nine seasons.

“We would say that a lot on ‘Scrubs,’” recalls the 47-year-old South Orange, New Jersey, during a recent interview in San Francisco. “We would say, ‘Don’t do that … . People only do that in the movies… .’ I wanted to make choices (in this film) where the audience might think ‘oh x-y-z is going to happen.’ I tried to subvert that.”

Mission accomplished.

Braff wrote and directed “A Good Person,” which is his most ambitious yet. It delivers Braff’s trademark emotionally brittle characters a troubled protagonist who doesn’t always endear herself to the audience. Each character discovers the reality of how anyone’s life can change in a split second. It also deals with unresolved grief and addiction.

“A Good Person” focuses on the aftermath of a car accident that leaves its lone survivor, the musically inclined Allison (Florence Pugh who wrote her own songs and sings in the film) on the path of opioid addiction. Through a twist of fate, her predicament reunites her with her former father-in-law-to-be (Morgan Freeman), an ex-cop and recovering alcoholic, and throws her into a relationship with an idealistic and rebellious teenager (Celeste O’Conner), whose parents perished in the crash.

As with all of Braff’s films, “A Good Story” comes from a personal space and features gusts of black humor amongst the tragedy. Braff knows how the salve of unexpected laughter can help during the hardest of times.

“I lost my sister to an aneurysm,” he remembers. “And sitting in the ICU waiting room with my family — and it was as miserable as you can imagine — someone said something that they didn’t even intend to be funny but everyone just starts belly laughing. And there’s tears coming out of your eyes — joyful tears to replace the painful ones.”

“A Good Person” taps into those welcome moments of mirth and indirectly touches on the unhealed pain and loss many experienced during the pandemic. It does so without ever referencing COVID-19.

Braff began writing the screenplay in 2020 and sought to address America’s opioid addiction epidemic since he saw the devastating fallout from it happening all around him.

“I know people that are still doing cocaine but they don’t want to give up cocaine so they bought fentanyl test strips for their cocaine. I mean that’s what a (expletive) time (in which we live.)”

He fashioned the character of Allison specifically for the multi-talented Pugh, who earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” The two hit it off while working on the hilarious 2019 short “In the Time It Takes to Get There,” and wound up in a three-year relationship.

Braff wrote “A Good Person” in fits and starts. Then the lockdown happened, which brought time and a resolve to write as well as the unexpected, wrenching loss of one of his dearest friends — dancer and actor Nick Cordero. Vibrant and healthy, the 41-year-old died due to COVID-19 complications in 2020.

Cordero’s wife, Amanda Kloots, remains a close friend of Braff’s. She along with Cordero and their baby son Elvis stayed in Braff’s guest house in those agonizing days before he died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

The friendship between Braff and Cordero was so strong that a month after Cordero died, Braff got an arm tattoo that’s a rendering of Cordero dancing in a hat.

Braff’s grieving process couldn’t help but make its way into “A Good Person’s” screenplay.

He and Pugh “were on the front lines” of dealing with what was happening and “showing up” for Kloots, Braff said. “And sure, that experience definitely informed the writing of ‘A Good Person,’ not just the loss of Nick but watching my friend Amanda, who is his widow, who was so traumatized … how does she go on? How does she start again? So that definitely informed the writing.”

When asked if “A Good Person” was his hardest screenplay to write, he responds immediately and emphatically, “absolutely.” It was no cakewalk to shoot either.

Not only did his anxiety skyrocket from trying to stay true to a strict 26-day shooting schedule, which included filming at his old high school, but he had to stay within the indie feature’s wafer-thin budget, which included expenses from adhering to COVID-19 protocols and testing.

All of that took a toll on Braff’s health who wound up with shingles — a painful condition triggered in people who have had chicken pox and a lowered immune system. Stress is also considered a contributing factor.

In pain for a chunk of the shoot, Braff knew he needed to carry on since time was money. Of course, he felt the worst during one of the most complicated and critical scenes; centered around a party that included a number of extras along with nearly every major player in the cast, including the 84-year-old Freeman.

“I didn’t even know what shingles were,” he said. “But then I Googled it and it was like if you’re over a certain age and you experience extreme anxiety and you’ve had chickenpox, you are a candidate for it.”

What helped get him through it all was his cast and his crew. He showers praise on both Pugh and the acclaimed actor Freeman, who worked with him previously on “Going in Style” and accepted the role on this small indie without hesitation once he read the script.

Both actors deliver powerful and poignant AA meeting monologues as part of “A Good Person.” (Braff worked closely with AA to ensure he was accurately portraying addiction and recovery).