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Profession: Actor
You may know her from: What Women Want, The Wedding Planner, Adaptation, or her guest-starring role in Fox’s hit comedy series “Arrested Development.” You’ll soon know her from: 13 Going on 30 (with Mark Ruffalo, dir. by Gary Winick), The Last Shot (with Matthew Broderick, writ/ dir. by Jeff Nathanson), Lollilove (writ/dir. by Jenna Fischer), In Memory of My Father (writ/dir. by Christopher Jaymes), The Village (with Joaquin Phoenix, writ/dir. by M. Night Shyamalan) and Cursed (with Christina Ricci, dir. by Wes Craven), followed soon by The Great New Wonderful (with Edie Falco, dir. by Danny Leiner)
Hobbies: Knitting, reading, fixing up her new old house in hip Larchmont Village.
Favorite Movie Ever: Moonstruck
Favorite Movie Role: “Lucy” in 13 Going on 30 (“I got to be the bad guy!”)
Best Impression: Dumb blonde (She’s neither)
Marital Status: Still Single (but maybe not for long, mom)
Endearing Quote: “To see the humor in life is sometimes difficult. My job as a storyteller is to remind people that the humor is there—they just have to look.”
We happened to notice that Judy Greer made more movies scheduled for release this year than many actors make in their entire careers, and decided to ask her how she does it. What secrets does she have that struggling actors can learn from? I met her one breezy late afternoon in mid-March at Mani’s Bakery in Hollywood. The weather fit the mood fit the girl perfectly as she bopped in, swung around to my table and offered me a big smile and handshake. She didn’t have to utter a single word before I figured out Secret #1 to why she’s in such high demand. But I asked her anyway.
“Well,” she said, “If I went to a meeting with Mike Nichols and he thought I were a bitch, do you think he’d hire me? Why would he want to work with a bitch?”
And that’s the second reason she works. Secret #2. She hits you head-on, straightforward, the way you’d expect a Midwestern girl would. Still, when you hear the nutshell career recap, you think it just can’t be this easy. She got her first movie role (Kissing A Fool, with David Schwimmer) while still a senior in DePaul University’s acting program, she came to LA for the premiere, landed two more jobs immediately and has been working ever since. But what else? She’s hiding something, right? The long dry spells. The nights of sleepless insecurity. It’s never this easy… or is it?
Maybe for some people it is. You take all that American Dream stuff to heart, you take the bus and you work it. For dreams to come true you have to have them, right? She was reading a book called “Poker Nation” when I met her. This girl’s a born dreamer. Her favorite movie is Moonstruck. She’s a born romantic. Her second favorite is Tootsie. She loves to laugh. Are you getting the picture? Hollywood likes people like this. She isn’t complicated or brooding. Not to journalists and casting agents, anyway. That’s Secret #3, in case you’re keeping score at home.
Which doesn’t mean she lacks depth. She also had The New Yorker in her backpack. And she has a well developed sense of social empathy, too. She excitedly described the network pilot she just landed as “groundbreaking” because of its interracial themes.
Even with the slew of new movies, new respect and steady paychecks, she’s able to move easily through LA crowds without being pestered by gawking tourists. In other words, people still don’t know who she is. In fact, even the people on her film sets don’t know. They think she’s an extra, every single time out. The first day they tell her to park with the crew—and she does.
“Honestly, it’s just easier this way. If I park by my trailer, I’m going to be arguing with everybody about why I should be able to park next to the trailer with Judy Greer’s name on it.’”
We’ve now come to Secret #4. She’s accommodating; she’s a team player. All she asks is that she has fun and learns something new each time out.
“That’s a challenge. I want to learn something new about how to create a person better, or pick up something new. On Cursed I got to study self defense. These guys taught me how to break a guy’s kneecap. I wish I’d learned that growing up on the streets of Detroit.” And that’s Secret #5. The girl’s tough. If you’re an aspiring actor, you could do worse than to memorize the five secrets to Judy Greer’s success. MM