Judy Greer

Judy Greer, born Judith Therese Evans on July 20, 1975, in Detroit, Michigan, is an American actress who built a career across film, television, and stage. She adopted her mother's maiden name professionally to distinguish herself from other actresses sharing the name Judy or Judi Evans. Raised Roman Catholic in Redford Township and Livonia, she participated in the Creative and Performing Arts Program at Churchill High School before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The Theatre School at DePaul University in 1997. Her mother, Mollie Ann Greer, works as a hospital administrator, and her father, Rich Evans, is a mechanical engineer.

Greer entered the film industry in 1998 with a debut role in the horror film Stricken, playing a college student caught up in a fatal prank, followed by a small part in the Chicago-set drama Kissing a Fool that same year. Her first significant role came in 1999 when she was cast as Fern Mayo in Darren Stein's black comedy Jawbreaker, a nerdy teenager who discovers that her classmates murdered a friend. Supporting parts in the romantic comedies What Women Want (2000) and The Wedding Planner (2001) followed. In 2002, she appeared in Adaptation alongside a supporting role in an NBC pilot opposite Stephen Colbert, based on the Canadian series The Newsroom, in which Colbert played the lead and Greer portrayed his sister.

Her profile rose further in 2004 with co-starring roles in two commercially successful films. In 13 Going on 30, she played Lucy, a duplicitous editor at a fashion magazine alongside Jennifer Garner, in a film that grossed $96.5 million worldwide. That same year she appeared in M. Night Shyamalan's thriller The Village, which earned $256.7 million at the box office despite mixed critical reception. In 2005, she took on a role in Wes Craven's horror film Cursed and starred in The Great New Wonderful, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, playing a woman struggling to hold her marriage together. She also appeared in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. The following year she starred in The TV Set, another Tribeca Film Festival entry, as the personal manager of a television scriptwriter played by David Duchovny.

On television, Greer became a recurring presence across multiple series. She played Kitty Sanchez in ten episodes of the Fox comedy Arrested Development across its original run from 2003 to 2005 and its later seasons in 2013 and 2018. She noted in a 2009 interview that this role generated the most recognition from the public. Beginning in 2009, she took on the starring voice role of Cheryl Tunt in the FX, later FXX, animated comedy series Archer, a part she continued through 2023. She also starred as Lina Bowman in the FX sitcom Married from 2014 to 2015 and appeared as a recurring guest across Chuck Lorre productions including Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and Mom. Additional television credits include It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Kidding, Let's Go Luna, and Reboot.

Her film work expanded into major studio productions in the 2010s. She appeared in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011) and had roles in the blockbuster franchises Jurassic World (2015), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), and the Halloween reboot series beginning in 2018 and continuing with Halloween Kills in 2021. Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she appeared in Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). Additional film credits from this period include Carrie (2013), Men Women and Children (2014), Grandma (2015), Lemon (2017), Where'd You Go Bernadette (2019), Uncle Frank (2020), and Hollywood Stargirl (2022). In 2017, she made her directorial debut with the comedy-drama A Happening of Monumental Proportions.

Greer made her Broadway debut in 2012 in the play Dead Accounts, adding stage work to a career that had spanned film and television for more than a decade.