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 the back cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Gregory "Greg" Heffley is the main protagonist and antihero of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. He is the middle child of the Heffley family, and his older brother is Rodrick while his younger brother is Manny Heffley. Greg's best friend is Rowley Jefferson, who has a contrasting personality with Greg's.

Greg was portrayed by Zachary Gordon in the first three live-action films. In the fourth film, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Greg was played by Jason Drucker. He is portrayed by Brady Noon in the animated films.

Personality
Greg is usually very selfish and sometimes lazy, much of which is shown from his frequent manipulation of Rowley. He sometimes makes Rowley do his chores, such as homework, or give him a piggyback ride. Greg often causes trouble and plots mischievous schemes, with Rowley being involved in many of them. Several of Greg's schemes have backfired; for example, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball, he tries to make Rowley jealous while talking about his kitchen remodeling plans, but is frustrated when Rowley is instead happy for him. Whenever Greg does something wrong, he tries to blame another person. Rowley's parents, mostly his father, see Greg as a bad influence on Rowley because of his behavior and tendency to get himself and Rowley into trouble.

Greg is very self-conscious and is often concerned of his popularity level and public image. His main hobbies include playing video games (namely "Twisted Wizard"), cartooning, and writing comics. Throughout the books, Greg has said that his only talents consists of his interests. He spends most of his time on his hobbies, which deters him away from essential tasks such as schoolwork and chores. Greg has other talents that he does not acknowledge, possibly because he is unaware of them—in the first book and its film adaptation, when Greg auditions for the school play, the drama teacher says he has a nice soprano voice, and he is later revealed to be good at sewing.

At school, Greg receives bad grades, gets bullied, deals with the hardships of middle school, and is often trying to earn popularity points in order to gain attention and respect (though his plans to do so often result in either his own popularity dropping, or unintentionally boosting 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 Rodrick to get along but never work out. Greg's father, Frank, is annoyed by Greg's antics and laziness and tries to make him more active. 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, particularly in the movies. In addition, he has inherited many of Rodrick's traits (such as laziness, large ego, disdain for sports, being a trickster, etc.).

A notable trait of Greg 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. This is shown in when he delays his family by drying his sock after stepping in a slush puddle while heading to an airport in The Getaway, and putting it over a hand dryer, causing it to go into a urinal. Greg also has been shown to display forgetfulness as well as no linear thinking. A good example of this is when he has to remind himself to put his socks before his shoes in Old School.

Greg is also noted for having many attractions to girls, most notably Holly Hills. He fell in love with Holly ever since he met her at the seventh graders' roller rink (Rodrick Rules film). In the Dog Days film, after Heather's Sweet 16 party, Holly took Greg's hand, suggesting that she liked him. In the books, Greg lost interest in Holly after she mistook him for Fregley. In The Third Wheel, Greg dates Abigail and goes to a dance with her, but she stops liking him after he screams at her thinking she has chicken pox. In Wrecking Ball, Greg reveals he has had a crush on his science partner Becky Anton for years, and tells her about it while believing that he will be moving away. She is instead disturbed and asks to switch lab partners.

Despite his many flaws and the situations they have landed him in, Greg can be caring and thoughtful, and has done a number of good deeds to prove this, such as deceiving his classmates that he threw the cheese away (to save Rowley's reputation), and helping Rodrick complete his science project. Greg also shows unusual maturity when he chooses to conceal his late Meemaw's diamond ring that he found in an Easter egg, not wanting to see his family fight over it. In Wrecking Ball, Greg cries when he has to say goodbye to Rowley. In Double Down, he recalls his deceased Nana and regrets not having been nice to her, saying that he hopes she is happy in Heaven. When his school adds a Hero Points program to reward students for good behavior in Hard Luck, Greg is disappointed when people start abusing the system.

Appearance
In the books, Greg is usually wearing a white short and black pants. 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 books, Greg is 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.
 * Greg's birthday is in June in the book and movie series while it is in February according to the online version.
 * Greg was born premature, as stated in The Third Wheel.
 * 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.
 * 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 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 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".
 * 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.
 * In the book "Dog Days", Greg's phone number is revealed as 555-2941.
 * In the books "Dog Days" and The Ugly Truth, Greg's address is revealed as 12 Surrey Street.