Judy Greer’s career takes serious turn

updated 4:18 p.m. ET July 26, 2004

NEW YORK - Fans of the Fox comedy “Arrested Development” will recognize Judy Greer for her recurring role as flighty, slightly insane secretary Kitty. Now Greer is playing another character named Kitty in a very different setting.

She’s one of the frightened residents in “The Village,” the new thriller from M. Night Shyamalan about an insular town surrounded by dark forces in the woods in 1897 Pennsylvania.

It’s a big shift for the actress best known for her comic supporting roles, who turned 29 on July 20. She played Jennifer Garner’s mean-girl best friend in “13 Going on 30,” Adam Goldberg’s sidekick in the parody “The Hebrew Hammer” and Jennifer Lopez’s ditzy assistant in “The Wedding Planner.”

But she’s also had some pivotal, serious roles: the waitress who becomes the object of Nicolas Cage’s obsession in “Adaptation” and the mousy office clerk who’s planning to kill herself, until Mel Gibson stops her, in “What Women Want.”

THE VILLAGE Review: Spooky ‘Village’ offers more than thrills M. Night Shyamalan: Talent or hack? Joaquin Phoenix ‘acts on a different plane’ Judy Greer’s career takes serious turn The scary utopia of ‘The Village’

With about a half-dozen movies and a TV pilot in the next year or so, including Cameron Crowe’s latest, “Elizabethtown,” Greer’s career is very much alive. She talked with The Associated Press in a giddy, giggly phone interview from her Los Angeles home.

AP: Happy birthday, by the way. How did you spend it?

Greer: Thanks! My mom was visiting so we gardened. I planted lavender and jade plants. I have what she calls container plants...I don’t garden, by the way, so this is all very new to me.

AP: I know I sort of freaked out when I turned 29 — it’s the last year in your 20s, and all. How did you handle it?

Greer: I kind of wish it was 30! Honestly, I’m ready to be 30. I’m fine with it, actually. If my life sucked I’d probably be bummed out, but things have been good.

AP: We can’t talk about “The Village” that much — it’s all very hush-hush to avoid giving away any secrets. But did you see the twist coming?

Greer: No! But I’m clueless. I had to watch the end of “The Sixth Sense” three times and I’m totally not joking. He’s what? He’s dead? I didn’t see (“The Village”) twist coming and I was like, no way! He’s totally outdone himself.

AP: This movie is very different from the previous ones you’ve acted in. How did you prepare for it?

Greer: I don’t tend to do a lot of preparation, which could change depending on what’s expected of me. He had us come out two weeks early. We rehearsed, we lived together. We went to movie star boot camp where we learned about the period — different speakers in the morning would teach us class, then we rehearsed in the afternoon. We went swimming, canoeing, we lived in tents, we couldn’t bring our cell phones...I’ll tell you one thing, you put on a corset, it changes everything. Right now I’m sitting on the bed cross-legged with a cup of coffee, hunched over. A corset forces you to sit up straight, and when you sit up straight it changes your character. It’s the same difference between flip-flops and Manolo Blahniks — it changes the way you walk, and when you change the way you walk, you change the way you are.

AP: Shyamalan told me he brought you in as comic relief, to provide much-needed levity. Was making this film sometimes unbearably intense?

Greer: We had so much fun! He’s right about that — my scenes are funny. And then when we shot stuff that was not funny, we were still laughing, jumping up and down, running around.

AP: Did it ever get spooky shooting out there in the woods?

Greer: There’s one scene we shot many, many takes of, and in the beginning I was pretty scared but after a while we were back to our old antics. We were totally in the middle of nowhere in a great, big, giant bubble. It was like a scary movie biosphere.

AP: When you were shooting “The Wedding Planner,” was there just an insane amount of media and paparazzi following Jennifer Lopez?

Greer: It was actually worse for Jennifer Garner. “The Wedding Planner” was a long time ago. People forget that she was very famous when we shot the movie but not like she is now. I can’t even imagine what it would be like working with her now. At the time, she had her entourage of people but she was very approachable. I don’t remember having problems with paparazzi at all — not like with Jennifer Garner. We were shooting in New York and it was insane. There was paparazzi taking her picture standing literally behind the Steadicam operator. She was going through her divorce at the time so she had to look all happy all the time — they were dying to get pictures of her looking sad.

AP: When people recognize you, is it for “Arrested Development” or one of your movies?

Greer: I still get recognized all the time from “The Wedding Planner” and that was, like, five years ago, but it is on cable a lot. And when I get recognized for “Arrested Development” I’m like, whoever it is that recognizes me from that, I like. I think anyone who likes that show is smart and funny.

AP: The show just got nominated for a bunch of Emmys, including best comedy, and it’s coming back for a second season. Was that a surprise, considering that it’s gotten critical praise but the ratings haven’t been astronomical?

Greer: As (co-star) Will Arnett points out, it has the highest TiVo rating, if there is such a thing...I guess I wasn’t surprised it was coming back but a lot of people were. When I’m out and about and working, people talk about it all the time. I would have been shocked if hadn’t come back.

AP: The humor is so dry and deadpan — how do you keep from cracking up during shooting?

Greer: I haven’t figured that one out yet, so maybe that’s why I’m not a series regular. (Laughing.)

AP: You recently competed in an episode of “Celebrity Poker Showdown” on Bravo. How did you become such an astute poker player?

Greer: I am not! I only did it for charity. Just by showing up you get a free trip to Vegas and gift certificates to the Palms hotel and a beautiful suite. My boyfriend went, a couple of my friends went. But then you also get to donate, just by showing up, $5,000 to the charity of your choice, which is genius. How nice is that? I only started playing a month before. I don’t plan on watching the episode, it’s horrifying and embarrassing. I was so flippin’ nervous, I was shaking the whole time.

AP: What else do you want to do that you haven’t done?

Greer: I’m a little burned out. I need a little vacation. I’m doing a pilot — we’ll be shooting it in October — called “Nearly Nirvana.” It’s about a white girl who lives with her Indian boyfriend and we’re graduating from medical school and I find out I’m pregnant and he realizes he doesn’t want to go into medicine and his parents come and move in with us. It’s sort of my attempt at a leading lady role.

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