When we awoke this morning to news that “Dame†Judy Greer is being given another chance to prove that she’s got what it takes to escape Hollywood’s “best friend†ghetto, we immediately let out a yelp of anticipatory glee. As we have outlined at length in the past, we here at Vulture have been huge fans of Miss Greer’s quirky brand of off-center funniness for years, pretty much ever since we first took note of her in 1999’s Jawbreaker. And while some naysayers might decide to deride Greer for temporarily abandoning her dreams of big-screen stardom in favor of taking yet another shot at establishing herself as a television actress, we applaud her decision to (at least temporarily) focus on that particular medium. After all, it’s probably her best shot at becoming a household name.
For reasons not entirely clear to us, Greer has never been able to establish herself as a leading actress on the silver screen. Consequently, she has spent the majority of her time on best-friend duty, supporting the likes of Jennifer Garner (13 Going On 30), Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses), and Jennifer Lopez (The Wedding Planner). However, it was a recurring role on Arrested Development that allowed Greer to finally strut her stuff and show off her comedic chops on a consistent basis; ever since, she’s been spending most of her time focused on becoming a television star.
Unfortunately, she’s had rough luck finding the right role so far. Both Love Monkey and Miss Guided (which was a mid-season replacement on ABC in 2007) never caught on with audiences, but provided she gets a decent team of writers to support her, we don’t see any reason why she couldn’t catch on as a big star. After all, the extraordinary success of Tina Fey with both male and female audiences proves that people are looking for more than just bombshell looks in their TV stars. It’s not that Greer isn’t a looker, per se, but rather that we’ve always been drawn to her somewhat-goofy yet intellectual persona. Here’s hoping I’m With Stupid is the vehicle that not only gives Greer the chance to showcase that side of her personality (and, along the way, help her realize her potential as an actress), but also one that motivates the webmaster of Judy-Greer.org to get off his or her keister!