Greg Heffley

"I'll be famous one day, but for now, I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

- Greg Heffley, on back cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Gregory "Greg" Heffley is an American middle school student and the main protagonist of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. He is believed to be loosely based on Jeff Kinney when he was in middle school. Greg is very concerned about his popularity level and how he looks in public. He absolutely loves video games, comics, and slacking off, taking after his older brother, Rodrick Heffley. He takes up a lot of traits from Rodrick (such as selfishness, laziness, etc.). He also has an interest in cartooning and making comics. He was played by Zachary Gordon in the live-action movies Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. Greg is portrayed by Jason Drucker in the 2017 live-action film, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

Personality
Greg is lazy, petty, narcissistic, sociopathic, egotistical, eccentric, egocentric, usually backstabbing, and sometimes even selfish and dishonest, and apparently lacks talent. He hardly has any skills aside from video games and possibly singing. However, despite all this, Greg still has had his kind and caring moments, just not that often. He hates taking the blame for anything, and would much rather not take all the credit. Greg explains and narrates 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 (Mr. Ira) 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 (high male) 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's considered a "wimp", he has a problematic behavior in many cases, and he often puts himself and his family into trouble. Typically he is looking to find a scapegoat to blame, and only in very rare occasions does he admits being "wrong", but he also seems to care for others and, as such, is willing to give himself to people he loves, especially Rodrick. The parents of his best friend, Rowley, believe Greg is a bad influence on their son (mainly Rowley's dad) because he sometimes gets bad grades in school, does not focus on his studies like he's supposed to, and barely listens to his parents.

Greg wants to be famous when he grows up and imagines it many times. He is very petty in order to win.

Greg always has an exaggerated thought, being confident of being rich and famous. He also kind of bullies and use Rowley much more than needed, as he often thinks of hurting him and makes him do a lot of his work, like giving him piggy-rides, looking out for dog-poop, and completing Greg's English work since Greg is not good at writing in cursive, though Greg believes that he is doing it for a good cause. Although Greg is shown not to be hostile towards Rowley, in Rowley's diary, Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid, Greg can be seen shouting at Rowley for trying out his retainer.

He also had a huge crush on Holly Hills, when she turned up at the seventh graders' roller rink (Rodrick Rules film). Holly Hills was a new seventh grader at Westmore Middle School whom he fell deeply in love with. In the film adaptations of Rodrick Rules and Dog Days, he put in so much effort to win Holly all to himself, which was what Rodrick was reading out loud from Greg's diary in the film Rodrick Rules. After Holly's sister Heather Hills' Sweet Sixteen party in the film Dog Days, Holly took Greg's hand, indicating she liked him back and she thinks he is really amusing. However, in the books, Greg lost interest in Holly after she mistook him for Fregley.

Appearance
Greg is usually depicted with black shorts, or black pants (sometimes black jeans, or, when he is fantasizing, a black tuxedo) 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 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 a headgear as shown in The Ugly Truth. He also wears white shoes or black sandals (as shown in "Dog Days")

In the movie, he has brown hair and pale white skin. Like in the book, he's visually skinny and slightly shorter than Rowley.

Trivia

 * Greg likes soap operas, as shown in Dog Days.
 * Greg is younger than Rowley, as his birthday takes place during the summer, while Rowley's takes place during the first semester of the school year.
 * Greg's was born on February 19 in the online version. He has the same birthday as Jeff Kinney, the author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
 * Greg was born in June (Dog Days) and Rowley was born in October (Rodrick Rules).
 * If calculated well enough, Greg is revealed to be born on June 18.
 * With the proper calculations, the year Greg was born is presumed to be 1998.
 * Greg's birthday is in June in the book and movie series while it is in February according to the online version.
 * He lacks research on his projects and he fudged both his Moose and Chimpanzee essays and his international showcase of Malta due to him forgetting about it.
 * As what has been stated by Greg's creator, Jeff Kinney, Greg is drawn almost completely bald. Additionally, he slightly resembles Charlie Brown in Peanuts since both of them have a few sprigs of hair.
 * Greg was born premature, as stated in The Third Wheel.
 * It is possible that Greg has hyperthymesia- a condition that lets the individual 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 one-two.
 * Greg has been in detention 16 times:
 * 1st Detention: For sleeping in class in The Last Straw.
 * 2nd Detention: For being disrespectful to a teacher in the Class Clown short.
 * 3rd Detention: For selling a fake elevator pass to a 6th grader. Greg himself bought the pass on his first day in middle school. This occurred in The Third Wheel.
 * 4th-13th Detentions: In The Meltdown, a substitute teacher taught at the school. Greg and his friends decided to prank him by switching their names. The boy who said his name was Greg Heffley started misbehaving. The substitute teacher told the principal that "Greg Heffley" had been misbehaving. This caused the real Greg to receive 10 detentions.
 * 14th-16th Detentions: For getting caught copying off Rowley's paper on a test, causing him three detentions, and to retake the test. This happens in Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid.
 * Due to having over three detentions, Greg can no longer run for student council.
 * Greg was only five pounds seven ounces at birth with an average being 7.5 pounds, though newborns may vary from 5.5-10 pounds, this may be as he was born 3 weeks premature, even though most children born up to one month premature are of normal weight.
 * He is the only member of his family who did not serve as the main antagonist in any book. The other members of his family serve as the main antagonist in at least one book (Rodrick in Rodrick Rules, Frank in The Last Straw, Susan in Dog Days, and Manny in Cabin Fever).
 * Coincidentally, these books were after each other in order.
 * Greg tends to be very optimistic and full of himself, believing that he will be rich and famous and that by the age of twelve-thirteen, 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 toddler brother, Manny and also using "made-up" swears like "Raspberry Plastic Tickle Bear!", etc.
 * Greg is shown to swear and yell a lot in The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book's version of Diary of an Awesome, Friendly Kid.
 * 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 Slim. In Dog Days, there are multiple times when you can see Greg playing a PlayStation Portable and an unidentified home-console.
 * Greg is shown to be playing with a controller almost similar to the Nintendo 64 controller.
 * Greg is rarely seen smiling.
 * Also, none of the Wimpy Kid books' covers feature Greg smiling. However, The original Do-It-Yourself Book's cover has Greg smiling.
 * Greg is seen to have a high voice in the first, second and fourth films but in Dog Days his voice is deeper. This is most likely due to his original actor, Zachary Gordon, going through puberty.
 * Greg is the least popular kid in school in the first film after he got beaten up by Patty in Wrestling Class, and in "The Wizard of Oz" play.
 * Greg believes that he is the best person he knows. He also seems to be quite self-absorbed due to his thoughts about some people and how oblivious he is of his behavior sometimes.
 * Greg still uses baby wipes, even if he is on the verge of teenage years, as shown in the book, Old School.
 * Greg has contact-lenses, as mentioned in The Last Straw.
 * His sight must be very bad, as he wears thick glasses in The Last Straw when he lost his contact lenses.
 * He is Grandpa's favorite out of Frank's three sons, as revealed in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.
 * Greg is based on Jeff Kinney's worst qualities as a kid.
 * Greg appeared in an Igdoof comic, but he was referred to as Buster.
 * Greg is right-handed, as revealed in the eleventh book.
 * Greg owns a Ladybug in the Dog Days book and in the Dog Days film and later mentioned in the book. Hard Luck later temporarily owning her mother's Cell Phone. In the Long Haul film, it shows Greg owning an iPhone. In the book The Getaway, Greg is shown to own an iPod. It is unexplained how he received it.
 * In the Rodrick Rules film, it is showed that Greg has a YouTube Channel named "amazingGregheffley".
 * In the book "The Ugly Truth", Greg has a social media account.
 * In the first film, it's revealed Greg is in the 6th Grade and in the "Rodrick Rules" film it is stated by Greg that he is in the 7th Grade. Then, in the "Dog Days" film it is mentioned by his Dad that Greg is going to the 8th Grade.
 * In the Online version is it revealed Greg is in the 7th Grade.
 * In the books, Greg was in 6th grade in book 1, 7th in book 2-3, 8th in books 5-8, and 9th in books 10 and up.
 * Since he went through the metal detector rather than the X-ray machine scanner in The Getaway, he is assumed to be 12. The X-ray machine is used for 13-year-olds and over, although he said that it's only for grown-ups. Although the entire family might have gone through the metal detector due to having Manny with them.
 * Greg's age is revealed as 13 in the online version.
 * In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (film) Greg's age is reset to 12.
 * Greg's favorite color is blue.
 * Greg's favorite animal is a dog.
 * In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway Greg is shown to have arachnophobia, a fear of spiders.
 * Greg once fainted after seeing crickets in a box. Usually, it is a childish habit of fainting at the sight of insects and arachnids, considering Greg is nearly a teenager.
 * In the first book, Greg is one who created the Zoo-Wee-Mama as a punchline in a comic, while in the first film it was created by Rowley.
 * In the book "Dog Days", Greg's phone number is revealed as 555-2941.
 * Greg claims to have the ability to beat all of his classmates in video games.
 * Greg made an appearance in a Happy Meal Commercial created McDonald's alongside with The Pig, Rodrick, Gammie, and Sweetie.
 * In the books "Dog Days" and The Ugly Truth, Greg's address is revealed as 12 Surrey Street.
 * Greg claims to have lactose intolerance in the first book and in the third film Dog Days as a scapegoat. Also in cabin fever when Rodrick drinks the milk, Greg says, but maybe not exactly "Since Rodrick drank from that jug, I will not DRINK that milk.". This may mean that in cabin fever, he didn't have lactose intolerance. Although this could have been due to the fact it would get him away from eating the cheese in the first book.
 * In the French translations, Greg's name is changed to "Grég", but the pronunciation is not changed.
 * In the online version. Greg states that he writes in his diary so he can get out of doing chores.
 * Some photos show Greg with a tablet but it is never mentioned if he has one or not.
 * It also says that Greg has a computer in his room
 * In the first book, Greg said he is smaller than 95% of his grade
 * It is unknown if Greg has gone through puberty yet like in Dog Days film
 * In The Getaway it was Greg’s first time on a plane ever.
 * He also mentions that he wasn't very crazy about being locked inside a metal tube, which means he may have had no choice weather to go or not.
 * The front of Greg's head was shown in class clown and The Third Wheel and the back of his head in The Getaway and The Meltdown

Relationships
See Greg's Relationships