Judy Greer

Judith Therese Evans, known professionally as Judy Greer, is an American actress born on July 20, 1975. She is widely recognized as a character actress who has performed across a broad spectrum of film and television genres. She adopted her mother's maiden name as her stage name to distinguish herself from other performers with similar names.

Greer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to hospital administrator Mollie Ann and mechanical engineer Rich Evans. Raised Roman Catholic, she grew up in Redford Township and Livonia. She studied in the Creative and Performing Arts Program at Churchill High School before attending The Theatre School at DePaul University, where she graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

Greer made her feature film debut in the horror movie Stricken (1998) and earned her first major role as Fern Mayo in the black comedy Jawbreaker (1999). Over the following years, she built a prominent career in supporting roles across romantic comedies and dramas, including What Women Want (2000), The Wedding Planner (2001), Adaptation (2002), 13 Going on 30 (2004), The Village (2004), Elizabethtown (2005), 27 Dresses (2008), and Love & Other Drugs (2010). On television, she gained significant recognition portraying Kitty Sanchez in the comedy series Arrested Development.

In 2011, Greer received critical praise for her dramatic performance in Alexander Payne's film The Descendants, earning nominations for a Satellite Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. For her work in both The Descendants and Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), she became the first female actor to receive the John Cassavetes Award at the Denver Film Festival. She subsequently appeared in major blockbusters, including Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), Jurassic World (2015), Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Marvel Cinematic Universe films such as Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).

On television, Greer is well known for voicing Cheryl Tunt in the FXX animated comedy series Archer (2009–2023) and starring as Lina Bowman in Married (2014–2015). Her television work also includes roles in Miss Guided, Mad Love, Kidding, Reboot, and guest appearances on shows such as Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. Outside of acting, she hosted the exercise web series Reluctantly Healthy, published the 2014 autobiographical essay collection I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star, directed the AOL short film Quiet Time (2014), and made her feature directorial debut with A Happening of Monumental Proportions (2017).