Greg Heffley

Gregory "Greg" Heffley is an American middle school student who is a student at Westmore Middle School, and the main character of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise. He is the second-born son of his mother, Susan Heffley, with Rodrick being his older brother and Manny being his younger. He currently resides in the Heffley Family House.

He was played by Zachary Gordon in the live-action movie trilogy and by Jason Drucker in The Long Haul due to Gordon reaching puberty and went to college.

## Personality

Although he claims otherwise, Greg is cowardly, cocky, lazy, selfish, egotistical, narcissistic, self-centered (as mentioned by himself in Double Down), manipulative, and lacks any real common sense or deep thinking. He boasts very few talents or skills aside from video games, drawing, and possibly singing (although the only physical representation of this is seen in the first film). He hates taking the blame for anything and would much rather take all the credit for his others’ hard work than do anything for himself. Greg has also been known to be very clumsy, as he forgets his homework, and when he was eight, wet the bed. Although, he does have strong love and loyalty to his friends and family.

His only real best friend is Rowley Jefferson. Rowley takes part in Greg's schemes and is often a victim of Greg's manipulation and deception. The two have a very complicated relationship, as Greg sometimes takes advantage of Rowley's good nature, and his own schemes fail due to Rowley's foolishness or Greg’s own stupidity. Rowley's parents, mainly his father, view Greg as a bad influence on their son because Greg has a tendency of getting himself and Rowley into trouble. However, on some occasions, Greg can be seen standing up for Rowley, like in the first book.

At school, Greg often receives bad grades, gets bullied, deals with the difficulties of middle school, and is always trying to earn popularity points in order to gain attention and respect (although his plans to do so often result in either his own supposed place on the Popularity List to drop, or unintentionally raises Rowley's popularity).

At home, Greg has a mixed relationship with his family, especially with his younger brother Manny, who is overly pampered and protected by his parents (particularly his mother Susan). His mother tries to devise ways for Greg and his older brother Rodrickto get along but never work out. That's because Rodrick hates Greg. Greg's father, Frank, is annoyed by Greg's antics and laziness and tries to make him more active. Greg has a love/hate relationship with his older brother, Rodrick. Greg is often tormented and bullied by Rodrick and is also the victim of his pranks, yet they do care for each other deep down. In addition, he has inherited many of Rodrick's traits (such as laziness, inflated ego, etc.). In fact, many of Greg's teachers dislike him because they originally had Rodrick as a student even though Greg's classroom behavior does not mirror Rodrick's.

An important trait of Greg that becomes more apparent as the novels go on is his lack of logical and critical thinking. A lot of his actions are shown to have no thought or consideration prior to being acted out, and usually end in disastrous repercussions. Greg also has been shown to display constant forgetfulness as well as no linear thinking. Another character trait of Greg is his paranoia, which sometimes seems to get the better of him.

Greg is also noted for having many attractions to girls throughout the series, most notably a girl named Holly Hills, his classmate. His schemes used throughout the series usually fail in the hope of attracting girls though.

Greg rarely learns from his ill-fated mistakes and continues to scheme and plot for his various goals. Because of this and his impulsive nature, he usually puts himself and others in trouble, and will often try to find another person to take the blame.

He also stands up for Rowley sometimes as shown in the movie when he lied and told everyone that he ate the cheese, taking the blame for the green blobs on the school left by him and Rowley, and complimenting Rowley that he was a nice kid in Dog Days.

However, despite all this, Greg still has had his kind and caring moments, but not very frequently.

In the movies, Greg shows much, much more character development. He was basically the same in the first book, and once he became kind to Rowley, he also was improving his relationship with Rodrick in Rodrick Rules (film), and in Dog Days (film), the relationship between him and Rodrick are actually like brothers, as Rodrick shows Greg (and watches in disgust at) the introductory video for the Spag Union Preparatory School.

## Appearance

Greg is usually depicted with black shorts, or pants (sometimes black jeans, or, when he is fantasizing, a black tuxedo) and a shirt, as well as a thin mustache. 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 but stops where the first eye is while his ears are circled. His head is a circle that stops around his left eye. He also appears to wear contact lenses, which he mentioned in The Last Straw. He wears his backup glasses when he runs out of them. Greg also has a retainer as mentioned in Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid, and headgear as shown in The Ugly Truth. He also wears white shoes or black sandals (as shown in "Dog Days"). In the books, he only has three strands of hair on his head. In the movies, he has brown hair and pale white skin. Like in the book, he's visually skinny and slightly shorter than Rowley.

## Gallery

Greg as he appears in the moviesGreg as he appeared in the online bookGreg as he appears in the Awesome Friendly spin-off series