John Christopher McGinley (born August 3, 1959) is an American actor, author and former comedian. He is most notable for his roles as Perry Cox in Scrubs, Bob Slydell in Office Space, Captain Hendrix in The Rock, Sergeant Red O'Neill in Oliver Stone's Platoon and Marv in Stone's Wall Street. He has also written and produced for television and film. Apart from acting, McGinley is also an author, a board member and international spokesperson for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, and a spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome Society.

Biography

In February 1997, McGinley married Lauren Lambert. Their son, Max, who has Down Syndrome, was born that year. In December 2001, Lambert and McGinley divorced. In October 2002, he was chosen as "Dad of the Month" at iParenting.com. In August 2006, McGinley became engaged to yoga instructor Nicole Kessler in Malibu, whom he had dated for two years. The couple married on April 7, 2007 in a private ceremony at their home. They have two daughters.

McGinley owns a stake in one of Billy Gilroy's New York SoHo bistros, along with fellow actor Willem Dafoe. He is a close friend of John Cusack, with whom he likes to play golf.

McGinley serves on the Board of The Global Down Syndrome Foundation (based in Denver). He is a celebrity Ambassador for the National Down Syndrome Society. In addition, he is a Global Ambassador for Special Olympics and was an integral part in crafting Special Olympics' "R-word: Spread The Word, To End The Word" campaign. McGinley is a vocal supporter for the special needs community, and commented in late 2011 on the experience of raising a teenager with Down syndrome along with two young daughters:


Half the gene pool that spawned Max also spawned Billie, my soon-to-be-four-year-old, so I'm hypersensitive to any challenges she may have. [Kate, at 17 months old, is too young for school.] We've discovered that Billie can completely disengage, which troubled Nicole and I, so we took her to an early-education interventionist. She tested our daughter primarily by giving her tactical puzzles. As long as Billie was left alone to do them, she was fine. But when the teacher tried to give Billie praise, she was not interested. What this revealed is that Billie is fine as long as she is engaged in an activity, but she doesn't care for the traditional approval or an A, B or C grade. Our takeaway is that Billie is fine and that we'll have to find ways, people, systems, etc., that challenge her, because she doesn't care about kudos.

Her biggest strength is language. She's extraordinarily verbal, and Max's biggest challenge is his lack of spoken language. He can read at a certain level and do arithmetic, but he doesn't form sentences. So parenting Max and parenting Billie represent two polar opposites on the spoken-word spectrum. How we parent them in the same household and find a happy middle has been really interesting and continues to be.

McGinley is also an avid fan of the NHL Detroit Red Wings, and shows this by wearing a Red Wings jersey (usually Chris Chelios') in several Scrubs episodes. He was the narrator of the Red Wings' 2008 Championship DVD. McGinley maintains a home in Malibu, California, and is well known as a member of the "Malibu Mob", a group of celebrity friends and neighbors including John Cusack, Tony Danza, former Detroit Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios, big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton, beach volleyball pro Gabrielle Reece, and tennis player John McEnroe.

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