Career
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). He also was featured in a 1980s Subaru commercial. He appeared in the "Celebrity Challenge" version of American Gladiators, losing to Dean Cain. McGinley wrote the script for 1990s Suffering Bastards, in which he also co-starred.
He worked continually throughout the 1990s, appearing in films such as Point Break (1991), Highlander 2 (1991), Article 99 (1992), Wagons East! (1994), Se7en (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). In 2007, he had a role as Chuck in the film Are We Done Yet?. He has also had a small role as a gay highway patrolman in the Touchstone Pictures film Wild Hogs.
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.
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 show 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; he says the gesture means "It's gonna be OK."
Since the NFL season of 2007, McGinley has played the "Commish" of the More Taste League commercials for Miller Lite. He has also 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 Detroit Red Wings' 2008 Stanley Cup Championship. In 2009, McGinley started narrating commercials for ESPN.com.
McGinley wrote a 2005 book, Untalkative Bunny: How to Be Heard Without Saying a Word, for Big Tent Entertainment.
In 2008 McGinley was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.
Recently, he was cast in the film adaptation of the comic book Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, and he plays the role of the classic Superman villain, Metallo.
In 2012, it was announced that McGinley will be a recurring character on USA Network's Burn Notice as Michael Westen's original CIA trainer, Tom Card. He will be first introduced during the show's second episode of its sixth season.
Read more about this topic: John C. McGinley
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