Judy Greer appreciates that she and her Jawbreaker costars could tease each other on set without hurting anyone’s feelings.
“We had a lot of fun together. We respected each other, we made fun of each other,” Greer, 48, exclusively told Us Weekly at the Jawbreaker’s 25th anniversary celebration event hosted by Planoly and F.L.U.I.D., in Los Angeles on Friday, July 12. “We got to a point, I think, where we were able to, like, mess with each other a little bit.”
Jawbreaker was one of Greer’s earliest roles as she portrayed Fern “Vylette” Mayo in the 1999 horror-comedy, which followed a clique of popular girls, dubbed the Flawless Four, which consisted of Queen Bee Courtney Shayne (Rose McGowan), Marcie Fox (Julie Benz), Julie Freeman (Rebecca Gayheart) and Liz Purr (Charlotte Ayanna). Things for the teen queens go awry when they attempt to prank Liz — and accidentally kill her by choking her with a jawbreaker. The film has since become a cult classic, making a permanent mark in the pop culture zeitgeist.
While a majority of Greer’s costars portrayed mean girls, their attitude on set was nothing like their characters. Even after more than two decades, Greer only had sweet things to say about her on screen counterparts.
“Charlotte was probably the nicest person in the world,” she gushed. “Charlotte and Rebecca Gayheart were probably the two nicest people on set.” (As for McGowan, Greer previously told Vulture in 2022 that she is “probably still a little afraid” of the Charmed star.)
Greer confessed that she wasn’t sure how the experience on set was initially going to be since she was “new” to Hollywood at the time.
“It really was, like, my third movie. It was the first thing I ever did in Los Angeles. I didn’t even live here,” she explained. “It was all really fresh and exciting to me.”
Greer joked that she was “such a baby” at the time and would get excited about small Hollywood-esque things, like when people on set would go bring back beverages from the local Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.
In addition to having fond memories on set with her costars, Greer also enjoyed working with the movie’s director, Darren Stein, who the actress said gave her a lot of input when it came to creating her character.
“[Darren] was really open to ideas from us,” she said of the collaborative environment. “And I think he directed us in he leaned into what we were bringing to the role.”
In addition to the celebration, the movie’s stars, Greer, Benz and Gayheart, along with Stein, have been hosting a competition with Planoly, the leading social media management platform built for creators by creators, to select a fan-designed Jawbreaker emoji for World Emoji Day on July 17th.
With reporting by Mariel Turner
