Meet Josh Segarra, the Puerto Rican star lighting up Fox’s Best Medicine

If I’m reading something and laughing while I’m doing so, then I’m already falling in love with it because I just want to have a good time at work. With this script, we’re definitely laughing throughout the day.

So it was an easy yes. Also, to work with Josh (Charles) was an easy yes. I’ve been such a fan of his for such a long time, a big Sports Night guy, so I jumped at this opportunity.

Best Medicine is about a big town doctor who comes to a small town for a mysterious reason. You will find out the reason in our show, then he meets the locals, and then comedy ensues.

I play Sheriff Mark Milo. He is the only cop in town, so there isn’t much danger or crime in Port Wenn. Mark is a lot of fun. He is unabashedly earnest. He knows this town like the back of his hand, and he cares very deeply about every person in it. So when Dr. Best shows up, I think that Mark is excited to have a new friend.

Never. It’s the best. I get to wear that uniform every day. I’m going to make it a prerequisite for every job I have from here on out that I have to wear one costume the entire season.

Oh man, it is an honor to be a part of this one. We have a really good time making it.

We are shooting it up in the Hudson Valley. So it takes place in Port Wenn, but we are shooting it up here in New York, which has just been such a beautiful setting to be a part of.

I’ve been in New York most of my life, but I don’t spend much time there. So now, having a reason to spend time up there is a blessing. Our showrunner, Liz Tuccillo, is such a good boss. I love her to pieces. She is hilarious and is always looking for the funniest joke.

Same with my castmates. I love our crew. When you get one like this, you hold on to it as near and dear as you can.

I think it all starts with the script. That is your roadmap, and obviously, all the context clues are in there. If it is a good team making the production, that is also a big plus. If the character has something that I can chew into, that is another big plus.

But really, not to make it too general here, but if I can have fun, it’s a pretty simple yes. If I know I’m going to have a good time doing it, bringing it to life, and really digging in, because, sure, you get out of it what you put into it. 

I care very deeply about what I get to do. I’m living my dream, and I do not take it for granted. My parents worked really hard to give me the opportunity to chase my dreams, move to New York from Orlando, go to school up here, and pursue this crazy thing, this crazy circus. So now that I’m an act in the circus, I’m going to keep doing my backflips as long as they let me.

It’s my parents, my family. It started with them way back in the day. I’m really close to my family. I am the oldest of three, my brother Danny and my sister Becky.

My family has always had my back. Even when I first presented this to them, I wanted to go to NYU, and I still want to attend the acting school there. There has never been a moment when they have made me feel like I could not do this, that it was not the right decision to pursue, or that it made me nervous.

Because it is that type of thing, like anything in life. When you are feeling nervous and talking to someone else about it, and they make you feel nervous, well, now you are compoundedly nervous and scared. My parents, from the very beginning, have had such a belief in me, supported me, and kept reminding me that everything was okay and that they had my back, and I am just forever grateful to them. 

Now I have my own little crew, my wife, Brace, and my boys. I got three little guys, and that is my ‘ride or die crew’ right there. They have my back, and I love them to pieces. They make my heart flutter because they are reacting. 

They just see Daddy on screen. So, for instance, with this one, some of our trailers, there is a cut of Mark clapping going, “Doc, Doc B'”. And when that trailer kicked on, it was during one of the football games. All three of my boys just jumped right up after the commercial, started clapping, and said, “Doc B.” So now every time it pops up on TV, if we are watching something or hanging out in the house, one of my boys will scream, “Daddy, daddy,” and that will never stop being the coolest feeling in the world.

I think you just do it, as all of us do. The blessing is that I have a job where I can bring my boys. Not everybody has that gift. You cannot bring your family into the operating room when you are doing surgery. I get to bring them to my work and make them part of my life. So that is really important to me.

Whenever I land in a new city, and I am about to start a new job, FaceTime is really important to show them, “Okay, well, this is daddy’s apartment, and I always have a space for them to stay in, so this is y’all’s room.”

I will tell you a story. One time, I was putting my oldest to bed. This was years ago. He was probably like four-ish, and he said, “Daddy, when you go to work, do you have another family at work.” It really struck me. Of course, I was like, “No, Papito, you are my family.” Like daddy does not have another family. He was really wondering, “Well, you are our dad, right? So when you go to work, are you a dad over there, too?”

That led to a conversation between us where we just laughed about it afterward. I said, “Papito, you are my boy, and you are with me wherever I go. If I have a son on TV, that is my pretend son.” I guess I will be the fly on the wall as they get older and keep getting used to this funny thing that we do. All the questions they come up with always make me laugh.

It’s funny because every artist has to blaze their own path. When you are doing it, you are not quite in control. There are many factors with significant energy that must be considered in each decision. Looking back now, I can see all these little dots that have connected along the way, bringing me to this moment when I can sit here and chat with you.

So, turning points, I do not know. They have all just kind of been stepping stones. I remember getting my first TV movie when I was a sophomore in college. It was a CBS movie of the week called Vampire Bats. I still remain close to some of those castmates. We shot that in Louisiana, and that was my first time on a big boy set.

Coming out of college, I did a show called The Electric Company. And that was my first year out of college. So that I feel like it was my master class. All the artists that I got to work with on that are doing incredible things now. I just got to be around them all the time. Getting to be on stage, making my Broadway debut in Lysistrata Jones, was a pretty crazy time in my life. That is when I met my wife.

Honestly, I can kind of just keep naming a bunch of these things moments, because I remember each one vividly. When you get your first regular job on a television show, that is a big thing. When you get your first guest star, or anytime I am shooting in New York City, it’s a crazy experience, just because this is where my dream really came into fruition.

Of course, I had my childhood dream of doing this, but it didn’t really come true until I was up here. Like, oh, this is how we do it up here in the big leagues. So anytime I am walking up to a trailer, and it is on the corner of, you know, Columbus and 72nd, I am going to geek out, like, and the lights are shining. So it has been a lot of very, very cool moments. A lot.

Absolutely. It’s part of me. It’s who I am. Anytime anybody says anything sweet to me about it, I hold it near.

It’s been really fun to take characters who were not written as Puerto Rican or Latino and become that throughout the journey. That is not credit to me, it’s credit to the writers and to my bosses that I’ve had over the years.

It’s moments like when Bob Fisher, co-writer and co-executive producer for Sirens asked me about my little Pentecostal church that I grew up in with chickens in the back. All of a sudden, in the season one finale of the show, a little Pentecostal church pops up with chickens in the back.

Each little character. I can keep naming examples. On The Other Two, Lance is a Puerto Rican kid from Brooklyn. Then you see his family in season three. The whole joke was that I was talking to my PR team, and Brooke (a character from The Other Two) thinks I am talking to a publicist, but I am actually talking to my family. All of a sudden, you get to see a group of 12 Puerto Ricans walking into that apartment.

It’s days like that that the little thing inside of me feels really proud. That is just making me think of my family. It’s who I am. It’s what I am. So if I get to show little pieces of that and be as authentic as I can on screen, it’s cool.

My little guy just got his first musical. He is in fourth grade, and everyone is excited. In the car right now, I was the ticket liaison for all of my family flying in town. I’m the Uber to and from the airport. We’re also the hotel and the concierge service. We have a lot of air mattresses being blown up over my house right now. Everyone is coming and going. That is my biggest concern right now.

Knowing this, I’m just really proud of the show and excited that people are liking it, and grateful for everyone who said really sweet things to me. I hope people continue to enjoy hanging out with us in Port Wynn.