Zach Braff sat down with Mr. Porter for a cover story, and inside, he hailed how his girlfriend Florence Pugh took on all of the trolls who criticized their 21-year age gap. The 45-year-old has largely been silent amid the backlash, whereas the 24-year-old Pugh has spoken out.
He said of her Instagram post in defense of their relationship in April: “She literally sat down, hit record on her phone and said that. I thought, 'How could I possibly follow anything as intelligent and articulate as that?' So, I chose not to.”
The Little Women star responded to trolls who slammed her for celebrating Braff’s birthday on social media. “I would never in my life — ever, ever — tell anyone who they can or cannot love. It is not your place. And really, it has nothing to do with you,” she said in part. “The abuse that you throw at him is abuse that you're throwing at me.”
Braff also discussed his much-celebrated friendship with Scrubs co-star Donald Faison, on and offscreen. He said of their relationship on and offscreen: “I think what we tried to do is create this environment, create this friendship that was like, hey, you can be all these things and you can also be straight. You can also not be straight, but who gives a f**k?”
In his next project, The Comeback Trail, he stars with Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones and Emile Hirsch. He says of the project: “I don’t mind being typecast as the wide-eyed funny guy. I would never cast myself as, like, the heavy. I couldn’t believe that I got it.” The director, George Gallo (Midnight Run) asked for him specifically. “I guess he’d seen some of my work,” he said. “Garden State probably and maybe some Scrubs. And he said, ‘I need someone who’s not going to be intimidated by Bob De Niro because Bob is such a big presence.'”
The Comeback Trail is out December 18th.