1 of 5 | “13 Going on 30” co-stars Jennifer Garner (L) and Judy Greer have reunited for Season 2 of “The Last Thing He Told Me.” Photo courtesy of Apple TV
NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (UPI) — Jurassic World and Halloween actress Judy Greer says she was happy to join Season 2 of the mystery drama, The Last Thing He Told Me, in part because she got to work again with her 13 Going on 30 co-star Jennifer Garner.
“It was really fun. It was fun to be able to see her face every day, for sure. And then we had the same costume designer as that movie that we did all those years ago, Susie De Santo, which we loved, and our makeup artist Cindy Williams, also did that movie,” Greer, 50, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. “So, there was quite a bit of a reunion going on.”
Greer was also relieved to be jumping into a show that was already a hit with viewers.
“I felt like I was marrying into a very cool, successful family, and I didn’t have to do much to prove myself,” she recalled.
“They were all very close and just totally opened up the circle to let me in,” Greer added. “It’s like being around family. They’re compassionate and people are allowed to be vulnerable. People are allowed to take what they need for the moment that they have to service the script. But, also, it is a lot of fun and we do joke around a lot.”
The screen adaptation of Laura Dave’s books returned Friday with its first new episode since 2023.
The story follows Bailey (Angourie Rice) and her step-mother Hannah (Garner) as they try to move on after Bailey’s father Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) disappears following a run-in with the criminal clients of Bailey’s mob-lawyer, maternal grandfather Nicholas (David Morse).
Greer is introduced in Season 2 as Quinn, one of the gangster’s daughters and the best friend of Bailey’s late mother.
“She is fiercely protective of her family, but she is trying to distance herself from the family business,” Greer said.
“That is a really hard decision Quinn has to make. It’s like, ‘How close can you let yourself be to people that you don’t want to associate with? but you love them so much.’ I think it’s a heightened situation because it’s a TV show,” she went on.
“But I’m sure we all have people in our family that are like that, especially where politics are involved, and we’re like, ‘Oh, we love you so much, but we don’t want to talk about any of these items with you ever,'” she laughed.
Bailey and Hannah have grown closer in the five years since Owen vanished and mobsters looking for him have tried to kidnap his family to get him to come out of hiding.
“In Season 1, Bailey just did not want to hear anything that Hannah had to say. She was so mean. Mean, mean, mean,” said 25-year-old Mean Girls and Mare of Easttown alum Rice.
“If my stepdaughter had treated me that way, I would not have tried to keep her alive for that long,” Greer quipped.
“Poor Bailey. She’s having a rough time in Season 1. It was a shock when I watched it as an observer, because in my head playing it, everything was totally justified, and I still think it is,” Rice added.
“But when you watch it as a viewer, it kind of takes on a different meaning because you’re so in Hannah’s world. So, poor Bailey was just going through it and, then, in Season 2, Hannah really kept working at it and earned Bailey’s trust.”
Rice said that Bailey and Hannah are finally a team now, one that must work together as Owen’s past threatens his loved ones’ futures.
“Their conversations, even when they disagree, it’s not an argument anymore,” Rice said.
“It is a discussion and they are listening to each other and they are trying to problem-solve together and I loved getting to play that because it’s so nice to see a healthy mother-daughter relationship on screen.”
Bailey is also excited to have Quinn in her life because she hopes she can answer questions about her biological mom.
“Bailey wants any piece that connects her to her mother,” Rice said.
Greer added: “I would say the same for Quinn. I think she never thought that she would ever see Bailey — well, she thinks of her as Kristin — ever again. And, so, to have her standing in front of me in that first scene is such a gut punch and so exciting and, yet, she has so many secrets that she has to keep and she can’t allow herself to be fully open to Bailey…”
“She feels like, in a perfect world, she would have a second chance with her best friend by being a part of her daughter’s life,” Greer said.
Stars Jennifer Garner (L) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau attend the premiere of Apple series “The Last Thing He Told Me” in Los Angeles on April 13, 2023. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI.. | License Photo
