FX’s new comedy series Married stars Nat Faxon and Judy Greer as a couple who can barely remember what life was like before kids, debt and suburbia rained on their romance.
Odds are pretty good you know Judy Greer from something. In fact, she wrote a book, I Don’t Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star, mostly about her experiences playing the best friend in every Hollywood romantic comedy you’ve ever seen.
Greer gets to take the rom-com route again, but this time it’s in the new 10-episode FX series Married (Thursdays beginning July 17 at 10pm ET/PT). And she’s not playing the best friend.
“It’s so awesome!” she laughs when asked about what it’s like to take the lead in a TV series. “I love my best friend roles, but it’s fun to go to work every day.”
In Married, Greer stars as Lina, a stressed-out wife and mother of three young daughters who is trying desperately to keep her household, her marriage and her sanity intact. Nat Faxon, who won an Oscar for cowriting The Descendants, stars as Lina’s husband, Russ. Coincidentally, Greer also appeared in The Descendants, and jumped at the chance to work with Faxon again. “I think he might be perfect,” Greer says. “It’s kind of frustrating.”
Frustrating is a pretty good term for Russ and Lina’s marriage, which has been strained by the demands of parenthood, financial problems and different life goals. “Lina is just trying to keep everything afloat and is hoping for more support from him on a business partner level, and he is looking for more support from her on a relationship level, meaning like supporting his dreams and goals and ideas, and how he wants to live his life,” Greer says. “And she’s like, ‘I need to get through today and buy groceries and have money. Like what the hell?’”
Their problems extend to the bedroom, where Lina would rather read vampire fiction than be an outlet for Russ’ raging libido. She eventually gives him permission to satisfy his urges outside their marriage. “Three kids hanging on her all day, they’re really broke, the house is a mess, they have no money, and then at the end of the day, every night, when all she wants to do is sit and read about vampires, then she’s got this dude pawing on her,” Greer says. “I think she just gets driven to her wits’ end, basically.”
Photo: © 2014, FX Networks. All rights reserved. Credit: Prashant Gupta
