Grief Encounter

After experiencing personal loss amid a global pandemic, Zach Braff sat down to write a film for Florence Pugh that explored sorrow. The writer/director of A GOOD PERSON and his cast tell Total Film how addiction, music and terrible haircuts fed into a timely indie.

- JANE CROWTHER

Zach Braff is a self-confessed procrastinator. It’s been 19 years since the Scrubs star’s writing and directorial debut, Garden State, and nine years since he followed it with Wish I Was Here. Though he wanted to write a third film he struggled to get started. ‘There has to be a catalyst that really puts me in the chair,’ he laughs over Zoom from LA. ‘Like so many people who write, I’ll do anything to procrastinate. So it has to be something that I’m really willing to dedicate so much time to, and also something that I feel like I have to say that’s hopefully worthwhile to people.’

All three of his screenplays happened at pivotal points in his life, he admits: Garden State springing from a ‘post-collegiate quarter-life crisis’, while Wish I Was Here was triggered by his fears of his parents passing. A Good Person was born out of grief. ‘I had a four-year period where I just kept losing very important people in my life,’ he recalls of a series of sorrows: the death of his dad, his sister, his dog, his manager and, as the pandemic raged and devoured, his friend, actor Nick Cordero, who died of COVID-19 while staying in Braff’s guesthouse. His need to explore ‘standing up to grief’ also dovetailed with a wish to write something for Florence Pugh that showcased her skills. ‘We were partners [the couple split last year]. I was, and am, in awe of her talents, and I thought, “Oh my goodness, it would be such an honour to write for her.”’