When you meet Judy Greer, it's hard not to appreciate the sacrifices of vanity she made for her role as Ginger Farley in Barry Munday. As the shrewish, recently deflowered Ginger, Greer hides behind an explosion of curly hair, thick glasses, and plentiful antisocial tendencies. In person, Greer is cute, a little bit hyper, and quick to laugh. As we talk, she jokes that she likes taking unattractive roles because it means people always think she's prettier when they meet her. Mission accomplished.
While Greer has been putting in great supporting performances on both TV and film for years (amongst other things, she played Kitty on Arrested Development and voices the hyper-sexualized Cheryl on FX's animated spy satire Archer), Barry Munday allows her to shine in a leading role. In some ways, her performance as Ginger is even more important than Patrick Wilson's as Barry. Initially she doesn't want any relationship with Barry, dismissing him as just the "shiteater" who knocked her up and doesn't even remember doing so. We as the audience are just as skeptical that the cartoonish Barry can better himself as she is, so a crucial part of selling that change relies on how she interacts with him. Unlike the standard-issue rom-com girlfriend role, Ginger isn't defined by her relationship to Barry; it's the other way around. Here's what she had to say during the SXSW press day for Barry Munday.
What was it that attracted you to this role?
I always like playing people that are unattractive, because it's more fun and I feel like you have a lot more freedom. When you take the vanity out of my job, it just makes it so much easier to move around and not care about where the camera is or if I look skinny or pretty or anything like that. When you take away that factor it's freer or more fun, so I do tend to gravitate to those parts. Although my manager is like, "I really want you to look pretty." [laughs]
So, you're essentially low-balling the audience just so we're all impressed later. I like that, it's very insidious. When you read the script was there a specific moment or line that you couldn't wait to do?
Ginger has a line where she says, "Liking people is easy." It's one of those lines where...I have certain things I say that I never quite understand, or the meaning of the line changes through time for me. When I read that scene, I was excited so much. I was excited to play that, because of the sort of dramatic element to the scene. That line in particular is always like a lesson, like a Confucius saying that changes for me in my mind all the time when I think about it.
I like that all the characters really start out in a broader, more cartoony place and then gradually humanize.
Or is it that you start to suspend your disbelief?
I would say that's possibly true, except in Barry's case. You can't convince me he didn't start out more broad than he ended.
He definitely went through a change. [laughs]
How do you keep track of that emotional or character arc as an actor, since film's usually have you shooting scenes out of order?
In a weird way it's kind of like using computers to a computer programmer. It's just part of the job, so I've gotten really used to it. The most simple way is that I always make sure to read what happened before in the script and what's coming up after. When you're shooting a movie like this, you're shooting for three or four weeks and so it's pretty easy, because you're doing a lot every day. The harder ones are like three or four months on the job, where you're like, "What did I do when I did this scene on the first day of work?" Now I've just walked through the door and it's been three months. I remember when I did 13 Going on 30 Gary Winick created this really cool posterboard for [Jennifer Garner] of her character's arc and the two ages. I saw it in her trailer and I was like, "That's cool! I want to do that for all my jobs."
Did you ever get one?
[laughs] She had a really big part. My parts are usually much smaller.
You could have done it on this one!
What I do is, I'll have two copies of the script and I'll take out all my scenes and then I just have a little script of just my character and what I play, so I can see the arc of my character.
When you first sit down with a script, what is your process like? Do you just sit down and read the whole script first or do you have other little habits?
Sometimes I will go through the script real fast and look at the character. If it's a smaller movie or an offer, I feel like I need to respond quickly. Ninety-nine percent of the time I just sit down at the beginning and I read the whole thing. Then, when it comes time to make the movie, or if I get the part or I'm going back in to audition, I'll reread it a second time so it's stuck in there. 'cause the first read, when you're reading a script, I'm really thinking a lot about my character, what my character's doing and what she wants and all that stuff. The second time has to be like, "What's the story here? Is the movie good? What are the other characters? Do I have to take my clothes off?" [laughs]
Chloe Sevigny was talking about the challenges of coming in as a supporting role into this dynamic and group of people who are already established? As one of the leads, how do you try to make sure those people can click with the core cast?
It's so rare that I star in things, so normally I'm on the other end like she was saying. I'm usually the one that comes in and says, "You're all in a club, and it's my first day of school." [laughs] Generally, I just try to be really nice to everybody and let them figure it out.
Was there anything you learned from all those years of supporting roles that you were able to carry over to your role here?
Being nice to the new guy on set, definitely, because a lot times you go to work and people...aren't. I've learned how to keep my mouth shut on set. In the beginning when I was first starting out, I was always like, "What if we do this and what if we do that?" And everyone was like, "Yeah...who are you again?" I've learned not to argue about where to park my car [laughs]. But definitely, keeping my mouth shut is a big one.
How much freedom did you guys have as far as ad-libbing?
Lots. There's a lot of ad-libbing in the movie, but I don't remember all of it. Most of it was Patrick, and Chris was like, "Bring it." Which is what's really nice about him, he's just like, "Do what you want to do." Is it going to be better? Is it going to be funnier? Then do it.
