J.R. Martinez Talks Playing A Physical Therapist On Army Wives Season Finale

J.R. Martinez is heading to the season finale of “Army Wives” this weekend, playing a therapist helping a soldier through recovery.

“In a weird way, I actually know what that’s like because I went through it myself,” the actor and former “Dancing with the Stars” champ told Billy Bush and Kit Hoover on Access Hollywood Live on Tuesday.

“Being in recovery for two and a half years, I knew how therapists talked, I knew what they essentially would say to me to kind of motivate me or if I was having a bad day, so it was really easy to play that character and be that physical therapist,” he continued. “At the same time I was expected to be a motivator, which is who I am, it’s what I do, so, in a lot of ways, it wasn’t acting, it was me kind of having an opportunity to be myself.”

J.R. actually filmed his guest spot on a special day this summer.

“As you get older, you don’t celebrate your birthdays any more. You don’t go out and party. You don’t do Vegas like Michael Phelps and all them, and [Prince] Harry. You work now and plus, I’m a dad, you work now and it was actually on my birthday that I did ‘Army Wives,’ which is June 14,” he said.

The actor spent several years as a regular on the now-canceled “All My Children,” and he revealed it was the ABC soap where the acting bug really bit.

“Acting is fun, man. I stumbled upon it in 2008 [through] ‘All My Children,’ and I thought [I would] just have fun with. It’d be something cool to say I did one day, ‘I was on the show with Susan Lucci and all the big ones of daytime television,’ and it evolved and I actually got the bug,” J.R. said. “I love the art of acting, so it was really cool [that] ‘Army Wives’ reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we’d love for you to be part of our finale.’ It’s a great show.”

The “Army Wives” season finale airs Sunday at 10/9c on Lifetime.