It wasn’t until Judy Greer had more or less given up on becoming a Hollywood star that it finally started to happen for her. The perennial “best friend” in early aughts rom-coms like 13 Going on 30 and The Wedding Planner has spent the past few years popping up in huge franchise films like Ant-Man, Jurassic World and Halloween Kills. Now, she is the co-lead—and has the funniest part—in Hulu’s high-profile meta-sitcom Reboot.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Greer opens up about her uniquely prolific career and explains why she no longer covets the type of massive fame she once desired. She also reflects on her big breakthrough comedy role on Arrested Development and shares her reaction to the ugly drama behind the scenes.
With a career that has spanned 25 years and with more than 150 film and television credits to her name, Greer has earned the right in recent years to be a bit pickier about what she says “yes” to. But when showrunner Steve Levitan, who won a boatload of Emmys for Modern Family before creating Reboot, called to offer her the role of Bree Marie Jensen—a former sitcom star who self-exiled to become a Scandinavian duchess—she jumped at the opportunity to co-lead the show.
“I felt so confident going into this that it would be a rewarding experience, beyond if it was a successful show,” she tells me. “At this phase in my career I’m looking for education and fun and people to lovingly challenge me to be better and do better. And I’m looking for collaboration more than I’m looking for like, ‘Star! Hit! Money!’ That’s what drives me these days, and I’m next-level grateful that I can even use those things as criteria, that I have gotten to the point where I can do that.”
If Greer is just one of many stars in Reboot’s impressive ensemble, including Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, Rachel Bloom, and Paul Reiser, she will soon get a chance to show a very different side of herself as the sole star of actor Michael Shannon’s directorial debut Eric Larue, in which she will play the mother of a school shooter.
“It’s still really fresh and I came home from it and hit the ground running, doing press for Reboot,” Greer, who just wrapped filming on the project, says. “So I don’t even feel like I’ve had time to process that experience.”
Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing by subscribing to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.
So this is not your first leading role on TV, but this is a big show and you have had this “best friend” thing that follows you around. Does it bother you that that still is a thing when people talk about you? Have your feelings on it evolved at all, or did it used to bother you?
I think it only bothered me in what it implied to people. Or maybe this is my projection. Like, “You’re the bridesmaid, not the bride,” right? That’s kind of what I think the implication is. And the implication is that I’ve been unhappy, that I’ve been the runner-up, that I’ve gotten this silver medal in my career, and never the gold. And that’s not true. I would want my own career if I was starting out in this business. I can still go to Target. And when I fly myself I buy a coach ticket. I can do all that stuff and have a real life. I can go to restaurants. I don’t know, I think what I’ve managed is awesome. And the thing that’s been fun as time goes on, and as I continue to work, and I get older, and the parts that come to me are getting more and more interesting, I never had to be like, “Oh, I can’t be the lead anymore, because I’m in my forties.” I mean, first of all, that’s changing for all actresses. But that’s never been an issue for me. I never had to really worry about that. And when people talk about me being the lead in [Reboot]—I mean, look, I’m going to take that if that’s a compliment. I think people think it is. For me, this feels very much like an ensemble.
It is.
It is! So I feel like I’m doing a disservice to my cast members of Reboot being like, “Isn’t it great that I’m a lead?” Because none of us are, it’s an ensemble show. But if what people are saying when they say I’m the lead is that I look attractive in this, then sometimes I’m like, are you just saying that because I have really pretty hair and I look pretty and I’m wearing pretty clothes?
You look like the lead!
I think that’s what it is. And we’re still trying to tweak what we’re looking for in the lead. But yes, you look at me in a picture and you’re like, “She’s the star of the show.” But I don’t think that is necessarily true in this case. And thank God, by the way, because who wants the whole show resting on their shoulders? Pressure!
Well, it’s interesting that you mentioned the issues around aging, because that is something that your character is dealing with as well. There’s the moment where she's really pushing back on the idea that they want her to play a grandmother. I think the line is, “It’s the last stop before Law & Order judge.” I love that.
I love that too. There are so many funny lines like that.
Do you feel like that’s something you haven’t had to deal with in the same way that she’s dealing with it in the show? Or how do you think about those opportunities changing for you?
Well, yes, I think I deal with it mostly in that I have attached myself to different projects that have been in development for so long that I’m like, I think I’m too old to play this role anymore. I think I’ve aged myself out of this. Like, if we don’t make this film, I don’t think I’m your girl anymore. Woman. But the thing is, aging in showbiz, it’s no big deal. There’s never not a story to tell. There’s a story to tell for every age that every person is in every life.
If they are willing to make those stories.
That’s the thing. It’s like, well, the public doesn’t want to see X or the public doesn’t want to see Y. But I think that they do. I remember a long time ago, and I don’t even remember which role it was, but it was the first time I got cast as a mom. And I was whining to my dad on the phone about it. “Now I’m a mom.” And he was like, “Yeah, but think of all the roles that now have opened up for you as a mom. Think of all the great mom roles out there you’ll get to play.” And I was like, “Oh, yeah.” And I thought, well, that is true. And then there’s going to be great roles to play for every stage of my life. So I think we’re working in general on ageism. People are always going to want to look at beautiful people and young people, and as long as we continue to prize youth and beauty in our culture, that’s always going to be something that actresses my age and over are going to be up against. But I think if we’re good at our job and we’re telling good stories and people promote what we’re doing, I think it will be fine. I’ll be fine.
Reed (Keegan-Michael Key) and Bree (Judy Greer) in Hulu's Reboot.
Michael Desmond/HuluWhat were your goals when you first started acting, when you were just starting out in the business?
What made me think I had a shot was, I watched this movie called Citizen Ruth with Laura Dern. And, I mean, she is so incredible, so good in that movie. And she was dirty and messy and yucky and played down her looks. And there was something about that movie and that story and that performance that I just thought, oh, maybe if I could do stuff like that I would maybe have a shot. And look, I had no idea that she was Hollywood royalty. I didn’t know who she was, so I was just a kid in theater school watching this movie. So I was like, that’s more what I look like than Julia Roberts. I’m more like that. And so I think from a young age I was able to identify that I’m not going to be like Julia Roberts or, at the time, like Cameron Diaz or something. I’m going to have something that’s a little bit off, or a little bit different, the way I look, and the way my voice sounds, and all of those things that make me me. And ironically in theater school, which I loved my experience in theater school, and I loved my school, but they did try to pull a lot of that out of us. They try to just make you into this empty vessel that you can fill with the character. And I felt like what was more appreciated about me when I moved to L.A. and started auditioning was, “What was Judy?” And that’s what I saw in that performance of Laura Dern’s in Citizen Ruth. So I guess my answer is yes to both. I did think that roles like that would be more available to me than they were. But I also thought maybe I’ll be able to be a star in that way, or be the lead in that way. And that has taken me through my career, probably this amount of time.
You feel like you’re just getting to that point now in a way?
In some ways. I’ve done some really cool, independent movies this summer and I’ve had some really cool acting experiences. And I really have fallen in love again with actually acting, kind of through Reboot. Just getting to just be funny and do comedy, just like a straight-up comedy. And I missed doing that. I really missed doing comedy. And then I went and did two pretty intense independent movies where I got to star in them and tell these great stories. Hopefully the world will be able to see them. You never know, I’m superstitious. So I’ve gotten to really stretch myself as an artist and I just feel right this second extremely fulfilled.
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