| “ | I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons. | ” |
| — —Greg Heffley | ||
Gregory "Greg" Heffley is an American middle school student and protagonist of Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, who is believed to be loosely based on Jeff Kinney. He is an outcast who has, according to him, unreliable friends. He is very concerned about his popularity level and how he looks in public. He absolutely loves video games and slacking off, taking after his older brother Rodrick Heffley. He takes up a lot of traits from Rodrick (like selfish, slacker, etc.) He also has an interest in cartooning and making comics. He is played by Zachary Gordon in all movies (2010-2012).
Personality
| “ | So if you want to find somebody to blame for the way I am, I'd guess you'd have to start with the public education system. | ” |
| — --Greg Heffley | ||
Greg explains throughout the series that he has no strong talents, other than video games and comics. As such, he spends most of his time on them, which deters him away from schoolwork and chores. For a time, he harbored a hope of drawing for the school newspaper, but his comic was bowdlerized by the editor and Rowley’s comic, which was also Greg's idea, was better liked by the people at his school. He hardly shows any other talents. However, Greg is probably good at singing, due to the fact that when he was auditioning for the school play, the drama teacher told him he had a nice soprano voice, and is also good at sewing, but he complains that these talents do not make him stand out.
Greg almost always tries to find a scapegoat to put the blame on for his behavior, but he is oblivious to the fact that nobody forced or influenced him, other than probably his older brother, Rodrick, to act in this manner. Very few times has Greg actually admitted to being "wrong" in a decision he made and took responsibility for it. It should also be noted that while Greg is arguably a watered down version of Rodrick, he does not have any productive interests and could actually be considered more hurtful than Rodrick psychologically.
Although he considered as a "Wimp"; he has a problematic behavior in many cases, and often he puts himself and his family into trouble. Typically he is looking to find a scapegoat so he to blame, and very few times admits being "wrong", but he also seems to feel caring for others and as such is willing to give of himself to people he loves, especially Roderick. The parents of his best friend, Rowley, believe Greg is a bad influence on their son because he gets bad grades in school, do not invest in studies and rarely listen to his parents.
He wants to be famous when he grows up, and imagines it many times.
Appearance
Greg is usually depicted with black shorts, or black pants (sometimes black jeans) and a white shirt. He is very skinny and does not seem to eat nor work out much. His father has tried to get him to work out and exercise, but he prefers playing video games. His nose is a simple oval while his ears are circled. He also appears to wear contact lenses, which he mentioned in The Third Wheel and sometimes his backup glasses.
In the movie, he has brown hair and pale white skin. Like in the book, he's visually skinny and shorter than Rowley.
Trivia
- Greg is ironically older than Rowley, as his birthday takes place during the summer, while Rowley's takes place during the first semester of the school year.
- The online book is the only time Greg's age is clearly mentioned.
- It is possible that Greg has hyperthymesia- a condition that lets the individual to recall almost everything in their life, however, in previous books he is shown to have a bad memory. It is most likely that he is inventing memories and has simply been told by his parents about life before birth. He talks about his time in pre-school, but this is not unusual as most people's first memories occur age 1-2.
- Greg has gotten detention three times:
- First for sleeping in class. (The Last Straw)
- Second for vandalizing the school walls (though it isn't confirmed). (Cabin Fever)
- Third for giving a fake elevator pass card to kids new to his middle school. (Third Wheel)
- As Greg has had three detentions, he could not sign up as student president.
- Greg was only 5 pounds 7 ounces at birth, as he was born 3 weeks premature.
- Greg tends to be very optimistic and full of himself, believing that he will be rich and famous, and that by the age of 12-13, he would have his own reality TV show.
- It is revealed in The Last Straw that Greg swears a lot, often swearing at school and even swearing in front of his three-year-old brother, Manny.
- In the second film when Greg finds out Manny put a cookie in his gaming console, you can see that it is an Xbox 360 Elite. In Dog Days, there are multiple times when you can see Greg playing a PlayStation Portable.
Quotes
Books
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- First of all, let me get this straight: this is a JOURNAL, not a diary.
- Let me just say for the record, that I think middle school is the dumbest idea ever invented.
- Man, I don't know WHAT is up with girls these days. It used to be a whole lot simpler back in elementary school. The deal was, if you were the fastest runner, you got all the girls.
- Nowadays, it's a whole lot more complicated. Not it's about what kind of clothes you wear or how rich you are or if you have a cute butt or whatever.
Rodrick Rules
- Now that Rodrick knows that I have another journal, I'd better keep this one locked up. Rodrick got hold of my last journal but don't even get me started on THAT story.
- At my first swim meet a couple of years ago, Dad told me that when the umpire shot off the starter pistol, I was supposed to dive in and start swimming.
- But what he DIDN'T tell me was that the started gun only fired blanks.
- Kids whose last names start with the first few letters of the alphabet get called up most by the teacher, and that's why they end up being the smartest.
- Making Rodrick getting out of bed early is a pretty big blow to him, because Rodrick LOVES to sleep. One time last fall, Rodrick slept for thirty-six hours STRAIGHT.
- Every time Bill sticked his tongue out and flicked it up and down like a rock star, you could Mom ring in with her opinion.
The Last Straw
- One thing I noticed right off the bat is that the people in my familly are doing a lousy job sticking to THEIR New Year's resolutions.
- I've heard some of the stories Mom and Dad read to Manny, and let me just say that the people who write these books really have a racket going.
- I just can't believe the people who write these ads can get away with lying like that. I thought about hiring a lawyer to sue those guys, but lawyers cost money and, like I said, the Cash Machine was a piece of garbage.
- I thought it was pretty ironic that Dad would be asking ME a favor, especially since he's the one who's shipping me off to military school tomorrow. So I was fine with letting him squirm.
- And I know it's really corny to finish with a happy ending, but it looks like I'm out of the paper anyway, so I guess this is the end.
Dog Days
The Ugly Truth
Cabin Fever
The Third Wheel
Hard Luck
Relationships
See Greg's Relationships