With his second directorial effort, Wish I Was Here , arriving in theaters, the former Scrubs star is as divisive as ever.
Wish I Was Here
Focus Features
There are some celebrities who inspire as much vitriol as they do affection — like Katherine Heigl, Hollywood's reigning queen of tone-deaf remarks, or Anne Hathaway, whose detractors have their own name, "Hathahaters." And then there's Zach Braff, who thanks to his ventures into filmmaking has been able to generate a next-level brand of hostility that's something special.
The former Scrubs star made his directorial debut in 2004 with Garden State, an indie hit with a Grammy-winning mix CD of a soundtrack that also managed to set off a string of think pieces on why Braff is the worst. "If Zach Braff is the voice of my generation, can't someone please crush his larynx?" mused Josh Levin at Slate .
New York magazine's theater critic Scott Brown began his review of Braff's playwriting debut All New People by pondering the actor-writer-filmmaker's perceived crimes: "Braff had the brass to venerate his generation without an ounce of critique, and fetishize himself in the process: He'll always be, first and foremost, the man who had Natalie Portman, playing an epileptic pixie next door, harvesting his hard-won tears in Dixie Cups." (Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence was sufficiently miffed by this article to be moved to pen a defense of his former leading man.)
Braff's second movie, Wish I Was Here, opens this week in select cities with built-in backlash thanks to its being funded, in part, by a $2 million Kickstarter campaign Braff launched after seeing the success of the Veronica Mars movie. The project ultimately netted over $3 million, while inspiring heated debate over whether or not celebs who aren't hurting for money have a right to crowdfund. Comedian Tim Heidecker was inspired to contribute a particularly scornful proposed scene for the film, enjoining Braff to "please cast me." Even the title has generated ire for its grammatical composition.
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