What was it like for you to turn 50? Did you embrace it? Did you fear it?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Honestly, it\u2019s the happiest I\u2019ve ever been. I always feel like Molly Shannon\u2019s Sally O\ufeff\u2019Malley character when she says, \u2018I\u2019m 50 years old!\u2019 It gave me the freedom to start making bolder choices about how I want the rest of my life to be. I had some epiphanies when I turned 50. I didn\u2019t even know they were coming, but I find myself all the time being like, I don\u2019t know if this happened for other of your readers, but being like, \u2018You know what? I\u2019m 50 f—ing years old. I\u2019m not dealing with that anymore. No more. If you\u2019re that type of person, you\u2019re gone.\u00a0I\u2019m 50 years old. I\u2019m not going to do X, Y, and Z anymore.\u2019 It gave me sort of permission to, in my own head, to sort of shut some mishigas out of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s the negative part of getting older for you?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n I don\u2019t really love the wrinkles under my eyes. I don\u2019t love my wrinkles, but I\u2019m getting used to them. I don\u2019t love that my beard is completely white. I wish I had a little more pepper in it. But no, there\u2019s no doubt, I\u2019m so happy. I\u2019m so fulfilled with work. And I have a great family, and I have a dog that is my pride and joy.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n Braff directs Harrison Ford in the Apple TV+ series \u201cShrinking.\u201d “He’s a big softy once you get past the gruffness,” Braff says of the Hollywood legend.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Apple<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n You\u2019ve also been busy directing. Will you do any more\u00a0Shrinking<\/i>\u00a0episodes?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n In this season [the third, which began streaming Jan. 28], I directed episodes 3 and 4. And I\u2019ve been directing for the new Steve Carell show called <\/span>Rooster<\/i> that comes out in March. I directed episodes 3 and 4 of that one as well.<\/p>\n How was it to direct Harrison Ford? That must have been quite a trip.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It was. He\u2019s a big softy once you get past the gruffness. It\u2019s very intimidating. But I had some, speaking of AARP, experience dealing with gruff seniors because I directed a movie for your audience called <\/span>Going in Style,<\/i> about three seniors that rob a bank. I was directing Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin. And then I directed Morgan again in my own film, A Good Person<\/i>. But Harrison takes the cake, and he\u2019s a sweetheart, and we found common ground \u2014 he liked my style of directing, and I\u2019m a pilot. I\u2019m not a pilot like on his level, but I have my pilot\u2019s license, and so we talk aviation.<\/p>\n I saw an old interview where you were turning 30 and you talked about how you\u2019d just taken your first flying lesson. It was on a bucket list of yours. Now that you\u2019re 50, what\u2019s still on the list?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019d like to get back into flying, to be honest. I let it go because I got busy with life and it\u2019s expensive and I was just focused on other things. But I find myself watching YouTube videos of guys flying the plane I used to have, and just living vicariously through YouTube guys.<\/span><\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n Braff and Chalke in Season 9 of \u201cScrubs\u201d in 2009. Both of their characters will again walk the halls of the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital in the series revival.<\/p>\n Richard Carwright\/ABC\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What do you like about flying?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n It requires every single aspect of your brain. It\u2019s bizarrely meditative because there\u2019s no room for you to have too much chatter going on in your head because you have to be constantly scanning your instruments and communicating and flying the airplane. It takes a lot of skill and you\u2019re so focused on it that your mind is kind of quiet. It also feels like such an achievement to be flying an airplane; it just feels cool. Also, I love learning. I loved taking on something that I never thought I would be able to do. I miss it. So that might be something I get back into in my 50s.<\/span><\/p>\n Is there anything else you\u2019d like to take on in your 50s?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Flying is the first thing that comes to mind. That\u2019s the big thing.\u00a0It remains to be seen whether I\u2019ll get married and have kids. That\u2019s on the TBD list. I might just be a dog owner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aarp.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What was it like for you to turn 50? Did you embrace it? Did you fear it? Honestly, it\u2019s the happiest I\u2019ve ever been. I always feel like Molly Shannon\u2019s Sally O\ufeff\u2019Malley character when she says, \u2018I\u2019m 50 years old!\u2019 It gave me the freedom to start making bolder choices about how I want the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2299341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[445546,347079,445544,445547,445550,347078,445549,445548,445545],"class_list":["post-2299340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-jd-scrubs","tag-scrubs","tag-scrubs-abc","tag-scrubs-reboot","tag-scrubs-tv-show","tag-zach-braff","tag-zach-braff-age","tag-zach-braff-interview","tag-zach-braff-scrubs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\u2018Scrubs-Actor-Zach-Braff-Finds-\u2018Freedom-in-Turning-50.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2299340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2299342,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2299340\/revisions\/2299342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2299341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2299340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2299340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2299340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"harrison](\"https:\/\/aarp.widen.net\/content\/qc5rmdixlk\/jpeg\/Shrinking_203_S01238F.jpg?crop=true&anchor=21,0&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=k2e9ec&w=2005&h=1152\" "\\"Zach")
<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.aarp.net\/etc\/uxdia\/images\/uxdia-spinner.svg\")
<\/p>\n![\"zach](\"https:\/\/aarp.widen.net\/content\/c583a5sg3f\/jpeg\/TCDSCRU_EC232.jpg?crop=true&anchor=0,14&q=80&color=ffffffff&u=k2e9ec&w=2048&h=1356\" "\\"Zach")
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