Judy Greer is giving Maggie Gyllenhaal her due as an indie icon.
Greer said during Sony Music Entertainment’s Dinner’s On Me Podcast, hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, that it was Gyllenhaal’s star-making turn in 2002 feature “Secretary” that paved the way for other “quirky” actresses in Hollywood. “Secretary” was directed by Steven Shainberg and starred Gyllenhaal as the eponymous employee of an attorney character played by James Spader; the duo engage in a dom-sub relationship.
“I remember there was this movie that Maggie Gyllenhaal starred in called ‘Secretary’ with James Spader. It’s fucking good,” Greer said. “We were up for the same things a lot. When she got that movie, my first instinct was jealousy because I’m a human being. And I was telling my agent, ‘Oh, I feel very jealous of her and now she’s a star,’ and like, I don’t think I would’ve gotten cast in that role. It’s not like I wanted that role. It wasn’t that jealousy. It was just like, oh, this is going to put her at that level.”
Greer continued, “And then my agent said something to me that and I still think of all the time. He’s like, ‘What you’re missing is that she’s opening a door for people like you to star in things and to be cast in roles like that.’”
The “Best Christmas Pageant Ever” actress quipped that she is proud to even take Gyllenhaal’s “sloppy seconds” for roles.
“Maggie’s energy and my energy is very different, but we were both sort of at the time quirky and not your traditionally beautiful person and have something a little off,” Greer said. “Our versions of all that are very different. But like, I remember thinking like, ‘Oh, right.’”
And at that time in Hollywood, it was a turning point revelation.
“[My agent was] like, ‘It’s actually a good thing. It means that the industry wants something different. They don’t want a cookie cutter pretty girl or the blonde, tan, pretty…If there’s a desire for this, they’re going to create more roles for this and [Maggie is] going to be busy playing them and then you’re going to get her sloppy seconds!’ And I’ll take it.”
Greer also reflected on being deemed a rising star for years.
“In the beginning, I think everyone thought they were discovering me, because someone who cast me in a TV show didn’t know that I’d been in an independent movie,” she said. “Yeah, people do like to talk [to me] about that like it was some kind of like by-design career. You know what I mean? Like I had tried all these years to do it exactly this. That’s not the case. I just like, I love working and I have to eat food.”
Like Greer, “Secretary” has also become a classic staple of Hollywood. Auteur Gregg Araki even told IndieWire that his upcoming feature “I Want Your Sex” is inspired by the film.
“It’s about Gen Z, and it has a little bit of that old movie ‘Secretary,’ another ‘old indie movie’ from the ‘90s,” Araki said.
And don’t forget the similar premise of “Babygirl” with Nicole Kidman playing a CEO who is the submissive one in the S&M dynamic with her intern (not secretary this time).
