John C. McGinley has had a 40-year career that’s taken him everywhere from the defunct soap Another World, to repeated collaborations with director Oliver Stone in films like Platoon and Wall Street, to the ’90s surf-thriller Point Break, to nine seasons as one of the stars of medical comedy Scrubs. The instantly-recognizable actor is a seasoned pro who has shared the screen with celebrities from Keanu Reeves to Sean Connery, but he still vividly remembers the moment in his own career when he felt most star-struck — and it didn’t occur on a set. Rather, as he recounted in a recent interview with Channel Guide, it happened backstage at a Billy Joel concert, when McGinley met the Piano Man himself — who then made an odd request of the actor.

“I was shooting a medical comedy in Kansas City, Article 99, with Kiefer [Sutherland] and Ray [Liotta], rest in peace,” McGinley told Channel Guide. “Billy Joel was coming to town. So, we got to go to the show and then go backstage.”