Judy Reyes on Working Double Duty on Scrubs and High Potential

For Judy Reyes, everything old is new again. More than 16 years after departing Scrubs, Reyes has scrubbed back in as no-nonsense head nurse Carla Espinosa — and the wife of Donald Faison's chief of surgery Christopher Turk — for the revival of the beloved ABC sitcom.

"It's such a unique opportunity to be not only on a hit show, but a well-loved, well-reviewed, well-respected show. It's the dream gift for an actor and to be able to have a chance to do something like that again... I'm just here for it," Reyes, who will appear in four of the new season's nine episodes, tells TV Guide. Unlike fellow original stars Faison, Zach Braff, and Sarah Chalke, who all returned as stars and executive producers, "I'm not deciding what [this revival] is or what it's supposed to be. I'm like, 'Where do you need me? I'm down.'"

The veteran Dominican-American actress balanced her special recurring guest-star role on Scrubs (whose new season was filmed in Vancouver) with her series-regular role on High Potential (filmed in Los Angeles). In the latter drama series, Reyes stars as Selena Soto, the lieutenant of the LAPD's Major Crimes division, who was responsible for recruiting Kaitlin Olson's boldly dressed savant Morgan Gillory as a consultant.

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Calling in from her home in the Los Angeles area a few hours before walking the red carpet at the Scrubs premiere last week, Reyes opens up below about how she did double duty on both shows, the "surreal" and "bizarre" experience of walking back into Sacred Heart Hospital, and the ulterior motives behind Soto's decision to keep Morgan around on High Potential.

Scrubs

You received a lot of questions last year about whether Carla would be returning for the Scrubs revival, which took years to put together due to creator Bill Lawrence's existing overall deal at Warner Bros. (Scrubs is produced by Disney's 20th Television.) When did you actually get the call that Scrubs was being revived and that you would be a part of it?

Reyes: I started hearing about it, and my reps were just keeping me in the know because they were working it out. Then the whole [production] moved up to Vancouver, and I'm like, "Oh, s**t, but I'm working on this show right now." To make a very long and involved story short, because I was working on this show, the thing that made it possible was the fact that they're both ABC shows. So when we heard, we were like, "Ah! Could we really [do both]?" And the commitment that both shows had to making it work — for me to come up and back and forth for those four episodes — was really great.

We were excited because I guess the great feeling about it is the fans say, "There's no Scrubs without Carla." And for me to actually really embrace that and appreciate it now in a way that I didn't [the first time], then it's a wonderful opportunity for me. Not a lot of people get that opportunity, but that moved me. They were like, "For a handful of episodes, you're going to go up there. People really want to see Carla on this show, because it's such a huge part of this change in time or change in television that's coming back."

The show finds plausible ways to explain Carla's absence in some episodes, such as the fact that she is picking up extra shifts elsewhere like in urgent care. How did you and the team at ABC work out the logistics of shooting two shows at the same time? Were you block shooting?

Reyes: Yes. Both our showrunners [High Potential's Todd Harthan and Scrubs' Aseem Batra] got in touch with each other to make sure that everything that I had to do happened in just a handful of days so that I had to go over there, shoot the scenes for the episode, and then come back. So they were really, really cooperative and so helpful with that, and then doing the same thing for when I was here doing High Potential. It was awesome.

You mentioned that the new season of Scrubs was filmed in Vancouver, but the crew rebuilt the entire hospital set to a tee. What was it like for you to walk back into Sacred Heart Hospital and to put on those scrubs again after all this time?

Reyes: It was so f**king weird, actually, to really walk into this recreation of the set in the hospital. Every single day I just got lost from the trailer to the set and the set to the trailer, because I didn't know where the f**k I was going, so it was just bizarre and surreal. In terms of getting together, once we got a really great script, we had a formal table read for ABC, Disney, Hulu, and all those guys — and we had an incredible table read. Everybody was on point. It just felt like we came home for the holidays. We hadn't seen each other in months, and we were just picking up where we left off. I couldn't believe how the same it felt even though it was chunks of years later, and that's kind of how it's always been. And just to be like that in front of the new kids, and to watch the new kids feel like we're looking at ourselves, it all felt very surreal.

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You recently revealed that your own child has been watching Scrubs, so you had a chance to revisit the show with your own family around the time that you returned to play Carla. Why do you think Scrubs has managed to stand the test of time?

Reyes: I always struggle with this question, but I think it's really good. It offers what I think every young person — every person coming out of college, coming out of high school, coming into an environment — is trying to do. [You're] trying to be really good at something that means a lot to you and loving the people that you work with, and understanding that it's funny and it's f**ked up all at the same time. That's just life, and the thing that gets you through are the people that are around you and the relationships that you have. That resonates in every show that you watch, whether it's a drama or a comedy or an ensemble, and this happens to be all those three things. It's a very, very unique gift for an actor.

The new season really feels like a checkup of sorts on all of the original characters in middle age. What new layers have you found in playing Carla after all this time, and how has she evolved since audiences last saw her?

Reyes: Carla's that woman that I've been around all my life. She has a full-time job, is married for 20 years, has a bunch of kids, [but] can still sew you a quilt. She just has that energy. She's present. And to see how she's handling that kind of energy — as you age, things change. It's more confusing to her that she's feeling tired than the fact that she's got four kids sewing quilts and running the nursing department at the hospital. Do you know what I mean? So being able to adjust to being older, I think, is what you're going to see Carla confronting, if you will.

So much of the success of Scrubs' original run boiled down to the main quartet — JD, Turk, Elliot, and of course Carla. How would you describe your character's relationships with the other three in this first season of the revival?

Reyes: Carla continues to negotiate how to handle [JD and Elliot after their divorce] because they're always in battle. I think that doesn't change. She's just trying to stay friends with the two of them, even though they're having their own problems, and that is the thing that we revisit with all four of them. Turk and I are awesome. Turk and I are a top-10 TV couple, as Donald Faison calls us, if not the number-one couple on TV, because we've been [so in tune with each other] from the moment we met, and that's never changed. We're always like, "You know I know what's going on with me, and I know what's going on with you. You know when I'm pissed, or when I'm happy, and [when to] leave me the f**k alone and go talk to JD." I think his presence in all our lives makes my marriage with him successful.

John C. McGinley returned as Dr. Cox in the pilot to retire and officially hand over the reins to JD, who is now the Chief of Medicine. Dr. Cox remarks that medicine has changed significantly in the last decade and a half, and the same could be said of comedy. A lot of the comments that Dr. Cox made during the show's original run probably couldn't fly today. How do you think the comedy of Scrubs has changed, if at all? And are there specific things about medicine or healthcare that are being explored in this season that might be a little different than in the series' original run?

Reyes: I think the latter point that you made is something that has always historically appealed to actual doctors and nurses. This show and life in the hospital resonates most with them. I think now with the birth of The Pitt, it's a different vibe entirely, but the opportunity we have is to make fun of who we used to be, and make fun of the fact that things are different. We can't be those people anymore. That's where the youth comes in — to take over the reins and help us understand or adjust to the fact that we can't be those people anymore, particularly where Dr. Cox is concerned. The world is a different place, and that takes an enormous amount of adjusting, especially when you're older. The show brought in a handful of interns to be able to help us make that transition and see how the audience adjusts too, because it is such a different world that you can't deny it at all.

To me, the tone feels like the same kind of vibe. Funny is funny, so the same tone, but the jokes are different — and we have to talk about why or how the jokes are different. We make fun of the jokes and make fun of ourselves, which is something that Bill and his team are ruthless about. We're all an ensemble, everybody's always together, so we are whores for a laugh. After a few hours, we're just needing something to just distract us or keep us going, and that's the greatest thing about working on the show.

High Potential

In the second season of High Potential, Selena is passed over for the captaincy position of Major Crimes that she had been hoping and working for, but she is still a much more effective leader than the new captain Nick Wagner (Steve Howey), as evidenced by the way she helps her team navigate one personal crisis after another. What intrigued you about how Selena has been navigating the disappointment of being passed over for a promotion while continuing to be this kind of mama bear for the people who work for her?

Judy Reyes: I guess because she's a woman, she's considered a mama bear, but she's taking advantage of the leadership position that she's got, the relationship that she has with Morgan, and the growing interest that she has to figure out how Roman's disappearance is linked to everything. I think it's more important to make sure that she's running a good department and tying up loose ends at the end of every episode than it is having [to dwell on how she] lost her position, things that she can't necessarily control. It's a great opportunity for her to just figure out the big caper.

What do you think makes Selena such an effective leader?

Reyes: For me, if you can use personal experience, you only get to prove the kind of leader you are by doing the things that you do. You get really good at something and then you get to be in charge of that thing and show other people how to be really good at that thing, and then ultimately you are looking for more challenges. I think that's the kind of person that Soto is — she's always looking to use her skills or all the things that she's learned to fix other things.

Your showrunner Todd has admitted to me on multiple occasions that he maybe waited a little too long to flesh out the characters around Morgan, but he wanted to make sure he could give each character the space to have their own personal storyline this season. How much do you actually know about Selena's life outside of work, and what kind of backstory, if any, have you created for her?

Reyes: That's so funny. We just wrapped the season a couple of weeks ago, and we're all talking about, "So, what's up with Soto? Who is she? What's her background? What's her history?" The background that I've given her doesn't necessarily match whatever we're going to find out about her and all the other characters [in the coming episodes]. I think that she does have life experience. She does have children. She has had a marriage. She has chosen work over everything else, and she's putting probably whatever familial or maternal instincts that she has into her work, after having probably compromised it earlier in her years for ambition. I think she's using it here in this environment to make up for stuff that she didn't put in her personal relationships. And after that, I don't know what the hell is going on with her. [Laughs.]

Is there anything coming up for Soto in these final six episodes? Or are you still hoping for another season to be able to peel back those layers on her personal life?

Reyes: Yes and yes. There's a little more, but, again, we're talking about how throughout next season we'll probably get to know more about not only her, but everybody else's relationships. We got to know a little bit about Karadec and our two other detectives [played by Deniz Akdeniz and Javicia Leslie] as well, so I think there's going to be more of that because there's just so much to play with.

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Morgan is certainly the epicenter of High Potential, but part of the fun of this show is getting to watch how different relationships — both at home and at work— reveal different sides of her. What do you think Selena saw in Morgan that has made Selena trust in her so implicitly as a consultant for the Major Crimes division of the LAPD?

Reyes: I love that question. I think that Selena relates to her — and whatever [Morgan] has to contribute, she can see in her. She has something to offer that other people just don't understand, can't handle, don't have the patience for, but there's something there. I think it's also selfish [on Selena's part], knowing that "[Morgan's gifts] could serve me and my team and the stuff that I'm trying to do to get to the next place." She's not necessarily knowing how those things are going to help her get to the next places — as we know, she gets passed over for the captaincy — but she relates to her, and she knows that she's got something special that she wants to be able to take advantage of.

How did you make sense of Selena's decision to blackmail the internal affairs officer into letting Morgan keep her job a few episodes ago? And will there be any repercussions for her actions?

Reyes: I think Selena personally felt responsible for the position that she ended up in. The team has now become most effective with Morgan on board, and I don't think that she wants to compromise that. She's not ready to do that yet. But is it going to cause her a lot of trouble? Absolutely — and she knows it. I also think Selena thinks that she has more control than she does under those circumstances, but she doesn't.

What else should viewers be looking out for in the last third of the season? Are relationships between this found family at work going to be tested?

Reyes: I'll say that the search for Roman continues and that, somehow, the captain becomes involved in that search. I think once everything becomes very intertwined, everybody's relationships become tested. Karadec and Morgan, Morgan and the captain, the captain and mine, and mine and Morgan's — everybody is struggling to do their jobs and solve this mystery that gets more and more involved, the more we know and the more we progress towards the end of the season.

I spoke with Daniel Sunjata a couple of weeks ago, and he ended up admitting to me that he sees the dynamic between Morgan and Karadec as potentially romantic. Your showrunner Todd is notorious for slow-burn relationships, so it remains to be seen how that relationship will play out, but how do you think Selena would feel about the prospect of her two leads in the department pursuing a relationship?

Reyes: I think that Selena would struggle with that. It would be wisest to keep that away from her because of the professional nature of [the job]. Again, to your point earlier, she's taken such a huge chance bringing her on board that [I'm wondering], can they keep something like that away from her? Can they keep her in the dark about something like that? I think they know she'd be like, "What are you doing?" I think it'd be like when your mom finds out that you're dating some married dude, like, "What the fuck are you doing? This is not good for our job. This is not good for our business." But we'll see, right? That would be interesting to see what the reaction is, if they do that.

Out of curiosity, do you see the high potential — no pun intended! — of a relationship between Morgan and Karadec?

Reyes: Me as Judy?

Yes.

Reyes: Hell yeah! I totally do. It reads all kind of like a Remington Steele, Moonlighting-kind of vibe. But do you want to see [them get together]? What happens if it does? I don't know if that's the direction that we're going to go in, but I can totally see it. And I think the fans are totally tuned in to see if it happens, which is really fun.

High Potential airs Tuesdays at 9/8c and Scrubs airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on ABC. Episodes of both shows stream the next day on Hulu.