By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up!
“Shooting a movie on location is like summer camp, at least my experience of summer camp. You don’t know anyone when you get there, then you become fast friends with almost everyone and wonder how you survived without them in your life…and then it’s over as quickly as it began, and you don’t see or talk to any of your new best friends ever again.”
-Judy Greer
Although only in her late 30’s, Judy Greer is a veteran character actress who has been in over forty feature films, countless TV shows, and appeared on the Broadway stage. You have probably seen her, or know her voice, or face, but can’t quite remember from where or when. That is the idea behind the title of her memoir I Don’t Know What You Know Me From: *Confessions of a Co-Star.
I know Greer best as the voice of the air-headed and promiscuous Cheryl Tunt on the hit animated TV series Archer, so I was looking forward to reading her book, excited about the prospect of some candid, behind-the-scenes anecdotes from her work on that series, as well as other films and shows.
I was not expecting great writing, which is understandable, (she is after all an actress, not a writer), and so I was not particularly disappointed on that front. However Greer’s inexperience shows as she quickly skims over potentially interesting stories as though she were in a hurry to finish the book. For example, at one point she talks about an experience with a “frenemy” she had in college. Greer does not go into any great detail as to what qualified this person as a “frenemy” so we could get a better idea of what she was like. (Don’t plainly tell us what they are like, give us details; an interesting yarn that displays their personality, and let us decide). At another point Greer describes all of her mother’s quirky habits in one paragraph, and moves on. Why not write a good twenty-page chapter on her that gives us an interesting, intricate portrait of a unique individual? Just mentioning some of her habits is not funny or interesting on its own. Give us some original insight or observations.
As for her insider Hollywood stories, they are few and details are sparse, (Greer is not much of a name dropper I’m afraid); the deepest she delves into that subject is a short section on sharing bathrooms with A-list stars. Most of I Don’t Know What You Know Me From covers her personal life, which is honestly not all that fascinating, and she barely even mentions Archer, so fans of that show, like myself, will be let down. Greer also over-uses exclamation points. (At least she mercifully employs the annoying “one word sentence for emphasis” just once). The chapters are short and the style is more like a blog than a book. Reading it I was reminded of an effort by journeyman cult actor Bruce Campbell called If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor, (although that volume was superior in technique, content and quality…but not significantly superior).
I Don’t Know What You Know Me From does have some amusing passages and Greer herself is likable, sympathetic and refreshingly easy to relate to; ultimately she is just a girl from the mid-west who happens to be an actress. Many of the things she does, like taking her step-children to little league games, are not all that different than any other upper middle-class step-mom with a career.
And by the way, Judy: Florida is Walt Disney World. Disneyland is the one in California.
