What hasn’t Judy Greer done? In the last 20 years she’s co-starred in every rom-com known to mankind, written a book, hosted a series of workout videos, and planted her feet as the voice of Cheryl Tunt, a complicated secretary, on Archer. She is also cosmically hilarious. The Cut caught up with Greer to discuss her love of Taco Bell sauce packets, finding serenity while her dog poops, and the best way to cure a hangover.
How I start my day: I start by taking my dog outside and standing in the cold until she takes a shit, so that she doesn’t take a shit inside and on my rug. Then I have some time to think. I used to meditate right away, but now I find taking my dog out to be my meditation.
How I like to sweat: I have a hard time working out in the morning when I’m shooting because my call times are so early. But if I’m not shooting I work out usually first thing. I found this class that I really love. I don’t really know what you call it, but it’s taught by this woman name Lauren. It’s like a ballet-meets-trampoline boot camp class. It’s so fucking fun and hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I just love it. I’ve never done a traditional boot camp kind of class, but I totally now understand why people become so addicted to it. You feel so proud of yourself. I’m just so fucking proud I got through that class. I’ve been doing it off and on for six months. She teaches group class and then sometimes I’ll splurge and just do a private class with her. I like spinning, too. I just really like classes, that’s my thing. I have a really hard time on my own. The competitiveness also helps.
What wellness means to me: It’s a recovery center. Wellness feels like something old people do. I guess I always think of the word “center” after it, like a wellness center and I think of a place where people go if they’re in bad physical or mental shape and they need to get everything better. That’s probably not right, but that’s where my mind goes.
How wellness has changed for me: I worked with this Ayurvedic doctor for a while and it changed my perspective on wellness because she would talk about wholeness, whole body-mind-spirit and soul health. When you’re younger in your 20s and 30s you want so badly to look good, it’s all about the outer appearance. The older you get the more you start to see the importance of your insides and how you treat your insides affects your outside. You can work out like a dog, but if you don’t take care what’s inside of you, it won’t really matter in the long run. I would love for my idea of the word wellness to become more along the lines of that, more of the Ayurvedic mind-body-spirit kind of idea.
My biggest wellness struggle is: I’m not good at moderation. It’s hard for me to have balance when it comes to wellness. I’m either eating perfectly, working out, meditating and sleeping really well, or none of the above. I’m really bad at maintaining things. When people are like: “Have a cheat day and eat whatever you want,” I can’t do it. For me the cheat day is a gateway drug.
What I like to eat when I’m alone: I eat like a 19-year-old college student, it’s really gross. I will take everything from the fridge and put it in a bowl and cover it in Taco Bell-sauce packets and call it food. I’m ashamed of my private eating. I can cook from a recipe but I don’t have that natural “let’s see what’s in the pantry and whip up a meal” intuition. I love Taco Bell. I keep the sauce packets in a Ziploc in my cupboard. You know how when you ask for packets at Taco Bell they just give you handfuls of them? I can’t bear to ever throw them out so we have so many Taco Bell packets. I don’t really do that with soy sauce because you can just buy soy sauce, but Taco Bell packets are different. And they’re made of crack so I love it so much.
My wellness advice is: The advice I’m giving myself right now is that I’m really trying to meal-plan. I sit down on Sundays and l plan my food. I know that sounds insane, but that helps me not to make bad decisions. Food for me is always my gateway. When I’m eating badly other things fall apart. Some really good advice I got from this woman I worked with, Carrie Peters, is that she said if you throw out your diet or mess up your exercise routine, just start over. Don’t say, “Oh, I’m going to start over on Monday because this week is shot.” If it’s Friday night, start on Saturday morning, don’t wait until Monday to get back into your routine. If you eat an entire pizza for lunch on Thursday, Thursday night you can start over. Nothing is shot.
My hangover advice is: My girlfriend Janet always says the best thing for a hangover is to go for a run and sweat it out. I mean, if you can run when you’re hungover then more power to you, but I always felt like that was really good advice. If you wake up hungover and feel like shit, go for a run, go for a walk, do something active outside and you won’t make bad hangover decisions all day. I’m saying that on a Friday morning like I’m planning the weekend in my mind already. But when you’re exercising it also gives your brain a rest. It helps your soul and mind. We can’t let one disastrous day or week or month discourage us.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
