Judy Greer: what went wrong?

She doesn’t have IT.

She doesn’t have that which is needed to carry a movie.

David O, Selznick would say she is bad investment. She is D Grader, on par with Flora Robson and Gladys Cooper.

She did trash from the outset, which probably put her out of the running for anything good.

She's not sexy. She's a character actress.

I don't think anything went wrong. She's been consistently working for decades in Hollywood and always delivers great performances. Not every actor has to be a headline movie STAR to be considered successful. In fact, those types often find they are in fashion for a while and then fizzle out, whereas Judy has been in loads of things, including (albeit in fairly small roles) blockbusters like Jurassic World and the Ant-Man movies, plus a more substantial role in the most recent Halloween (and will likely be in the sequels). I very much doubt she's sitting at home wondering what went wrong in her career.

Though as others have said, she doesn't have that leading lady sex appeal, but as a character actress I've always thought she is perfect. The bit in Halloween when she's screaming and breaking down as a lure for Michael then just switches into badass mode is the best moment in the film.

I remember a couple of years ago when she did the Sprint "Framily" commercials - in the past, appearing in commercials in the US meant career death for actors - thinking how surprised I was that an actor of her talent would appear in commercials, but since then, she's gone on to appear in multiple movies, albeit in supporting roles. So she's versatile enough that she can do lot of different things & no one holds it against her. She seems to have a kind of "odd ball" vibe

She's fine, she sends her love.

Not everyone needs to be #1. She's excellent in everything she does. She wrote a book recently. I bet she's fine.

She leaked her own nudes and NO ONE cared

She did herself no favours appearing in a remake of Brian De Palma's Carrie. Betty Buckley nailed that roll back in 1976 and Judy Greer came across as a wet blanket.

Hmmm...

She's had some very high-profile gigs like What Women Want and Arrested Development and I thought that her role in the awful 27 Dresses would put her over the top. But nope.

Maybe she can play the wacky aunt in a Disney show for kids. She's talented but maybe not A-List material.

UNDENIABLY TALENTED? Not sure about that, OP. She's pretty mediocre.

What R4 said. She's the Annie Potts of today. Someone get her a microwave popcorn commercial.

Please, R5. She's an actress. Of course she's sitting at home wondering what went wrong with her career.

I loved her in Jawbreaker. Hell, I loved everyone in that movie.

She’s had a great career for an ok looking woman.

Totally miscast in Halloween (2018). And now we have to endure her with two more sequels?

She’s relegated to a very specific type of role—the one you describe—“pert, perky,” earnest, eager, supportive, etc. She always seems a little silly, and like she is there to support someone else. There have been plenty of actors and actresses like this. Rosie O’Donnell was good in movies, but as endearing snarky-but-supportive best-friend comic relief. It’s hard to imagine her as a central figure.

She's a lot like Baranski, both have beaks for days, are thin, lanky and awkward with biting wit/humor.

When young, she didn't alter her face enough for leads, which is better for her in the long run as she can do character roles for days because her face can move and doesn't look like wax.

Her incest Survivor voice

Casting agents mistake her for Pam Grier when they call her in for the audition and she’s never right for those roles.

She’s done 700 films and is richer than god. I think she’s done quite wel.

She has acted in 135 projects according to IMDB and unlike the star of 13 Going on 30, she doesn’t have to do bank commercials.

She was in Halloween which was probably the most profitable film of last year when you compare it's meager budget to what it ended up raking in at the box office and I'd assume she'll be in the two sequels that are shooting back to back starting this month. She's good.

I did think she was miscast in Halloween, though. She came across as a shrill stick in the mud for most of it and there was that one awful scene where she's telling her daughter about her childhood outside a restaurant and it looks/sounds like she's reading off of cue cards. It's so flat.

Fern Mayo

She's not sitting at home wondering what happened to her career.

I saw her last week shooting "Kidding" with Jim Carrey at the Mar Vista Rec Center, which she shoehorned into her schedule of paying millions to renovate her house with the money made from her last Tropicana campaign with Jane Krakowski.

R24, I thought she was awful in that scene as well. I personally would've seen Danielle Harris in that role but I know they don't want to include anyone from the sequels or remakes.

Judy hasn’t got that hard core, like me. She never learned to rooooooooll with the punches.

Judy is a failure who has only had one hit romantic comedy years ago. Loser!!

She was very good in The Descendants but yeah, she's not a leading actress. She is a character actress, and she's mostly great (especially Jawbreaker). She's very good at playing seemingly sweet characters with a dark underside. I think that's her forte.

I agree with some posts here that she was miscast in Halloween. They should have hired Danielle Harris. Judy doesn't look anything like Jamie Lee and I found her character written as flat and uninteresting until the climax.

[quote] She is D Grader, on par with Flora Robson and Gladys Cooper.

What a stupid thing to say, not just because they were nothing like Judy Greer but also because those two were two of the best Golden Age characters actresses around (and they just happened to amass four Oscar nominations between them).

It's interesting, but I don't think anyone from the Golden Age of cinema can be compared to Miss Greer; female supporting actresses in those days were either odd-looking and matronly character actresses or gorgeous bimbos who were usually tossed aside by the lead male character for the leading lady. It's obvious that Judy doesn't fit any of these two groups. There really was no place in movies for actresses like her back then.

She's no Judy Geeson

She's no Judy Geeson

if i had to be an actress, she is the type i'd want to be. steady work, opportunities with the "greats", not too much fame, can go anywhere without being hounded by paps.

She's no Germaine Greer.

Nothing went wrong. She's an extremely busy actor usually scoring high in a continuum of big movies. She will probably be working forever while the so-called movie stars will age themselves out of the game by the time they're half her age.

If you search Wikipedia, she is the fourth most popular Judy, after Garland, Dench and Sheindlin. Not too shabby!

R17 Maybe they'll kill her off in the next movie.

She did an F/X sitcom a few years back that was oddly fantastic.

R38, I'll be shocked if they kill any of the Strode women in the next movie. I can see them killing off Laurie in the 3rd movie of the new trilogy to end the series in a huge, dramatic, emotional way (at least until they decide to do another remake or something) but I think Judy and her daughter will be safe. I could be wrong though. Lord knows I have been before.

The problem is both Laurie's daughter and especially her granddaughter are uninteresting. I can barely remember them from the 2018 reboot because they were so dull.

R39 I remember that show. She and the guy who played her husband had great chemistry.

She's no Jane Greer

She's no Greer Garson. And she knows it.

She’s weird looking but fills a niche role very well. She’s hilarious in Archer.

She's no Richard Grieco.

She is a reliable character actress who excels playing either the best friend role, or offbeat, neurotic, and bitchy women really well. She has the Fern Mayo role in Jawbreaker on her resume forever which gives her cult status to some degree. I also thought she was really funny as the antagonistic TV exec bitch in Cursed with Christina Ricci, which was a mess of a movie but still fun.

For an odd (not sexy) looking woman with NO famous parents/family she has done quite well for herself!!

She’s not that odd looking. It’s not like she’s Shelly Duvall. I think she is sometimes very pretty and sometimes elfishly cute.

Pretty

Odd looking

Odd looking

I thought she was the only one who acquitted herself well in that awful ‘Heathers’ rip-off Jawbreaker.

I love her and never figured out why she didn't land the right project, even as a supporting character.

Same with Becki Newton, who at least had one show that worked out for her.

R54 Becki Newton is awesome! She and Michael Urie appear to be good friends and cross post on Instagram.

Jawbreaker is an awful rip off of Heathers? It's definitely a rip off, but it's not awful. It's pretty fun.

I do wish they'd kill one of the Strode women in the next film to raise the stakes for Laurie. Or at least give them actual characters. Like the other poster said, I don't remember anything about them except one of them was whiny and bitchy and the other had a boyfriend who was an asshole.

I thought she was purposely going for the Joan Cusack niche.

I think she's done pretty well for herself. I first saw her in Jawbreakers. And she also played a bitchy frenemy in Suddenly 30. But I think my favourite is as a psychotically insecure werewolf in Cursed.

she has a certain kind of voice and affectation that would do good in an animated movie. or has she done that already

Judith stroking her darling self.

fake boobs

r18 she did play the snarky sarcastic type in 13 Going On 30

Until she plays a genteel Jane Austin character and founds a quackery lifestyle empire, Greer is NOTHING!

R27=Danielle Harris

Isn't the book she wrote all about being a character actor and how people always recognize her but don't know why? Seems to me like not being a movie star is her whole schtick...

Judith Therese Evans' yearbook photo:

For a parody, this thread has been taken pretty seriously.

I wasn't aware that Judy is now a director as well - her big directorial debut called "A Happening of Monumental Proportions" (starring Allison Janney and Common) was released in 2017 but the reviews were pretty harsh (and it's currently at shitty 18% rating on Rottentomatoes ).

Here's the cringey trailer. I wonder how many people actually saw this one (it has less than 500 votes on IMDb).

[quote]would do good in an animated movie. or has she done that already

She's great on the animated sitcom Archer. Her character started off as one of the (relatively) normal ones but quickly became weirder and darker, which suits Greer well.

I'd forgotten about Jawbreaker. Not a bad start to her career!

She definitely deserves better. I wouldn't even say that we haven't seen what she has to offer, because we have. She's hilarious, she can be heartbreaking... she has range, she's just never been given many high profile enough work to make that lasting of an impact, but I'm sure that most people within the industry know and respect her.

R65 I listened to the audiobook version a few months and yes that's mostly what the book is about. She comes off as content with character actress career.

What went wrong? She's everywhere. Quite frankly, I'm tired of seeing her AND hearing her in everything.

I liked her on "arrested development" - but then I started reading her autobiography and for some reason she seemed like a real turn off.

I lasted about 2 pages.

What kind of turn off? I'm curious.

Her tone-deaf cutesy baby voice was the albatross around her neck.

She's basically had the same career as Valerie Mahaffey. I think they might even be the same woman.

R49, R50 - she IS a bit of an odd-looking female. Looks are assessed in motion - and she looks a bit silly when she smiles. Which is why she gets mostly 'goofball' roles:

Goofy:

Goofy = character actress:

....

This is Greer in high school :)

Her parents need to be spanked. And her HW stylist deserves a raise for his hard work.

She's odd looking in that she has very pointed facial features, but I don't think she's ugly at all. She has a nice body working in her favor too; she's always been tall and slim.

Who said she was "ugly"? She's just quirky-looking - which is why she mostly gets quirky roles.

She looks like Anne Heche, a little.

[quote]It's interesting, but I don't think anyone from the Golden Age of cinema can be compared to Miss Greer

Celeste Holm

She actually used the word "gay" about Lee Pace. He probably felt violated over that.

Valerie Mahaffey is quirky too but way different. Maybe it's the voice. I don't like Greer's voice and hate it on Archer. Valerie Mahaffey, on the other hand, as Adam's wife named Eve (naturally) was outstanding, and used her voice so perfectly.

She's cute but she's no that girl form Trolls.... the singing movie... Pitch Perfect, oh that girls name oh what is it. I can't think of Anna Kendrick! She's no Anna Kendrick!

She always gave me a Carol Kane vibe. I saw them both in Jawbreaker and it seemed like such intentional casting to have Kane's character seems like what Greer's character's future would look like.

I like her and think she is a great actress. Someone needs to develop a tv show for her.

I like her and think she is a great actress. Someone needs to develop a tv show for her.

She was great in Jeff Who Lives At Home

Talented, dedicated, always working, and seems approachable. I've liked her in everything I've seen her in. She tends to play "out there" characters who other actors might not capture as well. She played and ex-con bookkeeper named Em Bezzler on Maria Bamford's show, Lady Dynamite. Loved her on Arrested Development too.

[quote]Loved her on Arrested Development too.

Eyes up here, Michael!

Her face I’d say.

I've been told she's more or less the lead in the new Halloween movie and is far better in this one than the last one. Then again, she apparently gets better material to work with this time.

Valerie Mahaffey stole her career.

She no Dabbs Greer.

She is a pretty good actress, and has worked consistently for decades. I've always found her very watchable. She kind of reminds me of Carol Kane (who she appeared with in "Jawbreaker" ). They share a similar, natural quirkiness.

She's no Iris Myandowski the hand-walking queer.