JUDY GREER ‘I HAVE THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS’
Hollywood’s most famous ‘best friend’ talks the Valley Girl remake and why at 44 she’s exactly where she wants to be
The musical remake of ’80s
hit movie Valley Girl is exactly what we need right now – it’s fun and colourful and such a departure from what you’ve done before!
I know, I didn’t even read the script. I just loved that it was a period piece with all the costumes and music! But the timingg is reallyyggood – I think we all needed it and the music is so fun and I love that it’s a musical – it adds such a special element to it.
Did you feel pressure about remaking Nicolas Cage and Deborah Foreman’s iconic original?
A little bit! But we have two audiences – the people who loved the original and then
we have the next generation – so I knew it’d be a slam dunk with the generation who weren’t alive when the original came out. But everyone I’ve spoken to has loved it.
This is set in the ’80s – did you have a similar experience back then?
The ’80s were the best!
It was Madonna and Duran Duran – the music was just amazing. I was too young to be following politics but I definitely remember using a lot of hairspray to get my bangs to stand up really high. It’s so funny to see all the ’80s fashion come back in style
– I kind of cringe because I’m like, “Ah, I was wearing that the first time around!”
Did you have a similar love story to Valley Girl? Did you ever fall for a bad boy?
Well, I always had crushes on the naughty guys. My high school boyfriend was a musician – I was always following the musicians around – so yes, quite similar!
You’ve created such a name for yourself for being “the best friend”. Looking back on your career now, how do you feel about it?
I would say I’m probably right where I want to be. I have a lot of opportunities but still feel like I have enough anonymity to enjoy my life and my friends and going to the mall if I feel like it. And I feel I have such a huge scope in the terms of films I work in. I can do those small independent films but then I get to work in huge blockbusters such as Ant-man and Jurassic World. I have the best of both worlds.
You’ve just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the iconic teen cult movie Jawbreaker – how does that feel?
It’s been such an important movie in my life. We just had a screening of the film and I was squeezing Darren Stein’s [the writer and director] hand the entire time. Just sitting in the theatre and watching it with an audience 20 years later, it was one of the highlights of my life. I’d always hoped it was going to be a hit but I knew it had something special, this over-the-top, glossy darkness – it’s really developed a cult following and I love it! VALLEY GIRL is streaming on Stan from Friday