Greg Heffley

"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 and main character 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 selfishness, being a 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 (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 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 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, do not focus on his studies like he's supposed to, and barely 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 The Last Straw, 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 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 (but this wasn't mentioned/shown). (Cabin Fever)
  • Third for giving a fake elevator pass card to kids new to his middle school. (Third Wheel)
    • Due to Greg having three detentions altogether, he could not sign up as a candidate for the 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.
• Greg is in seventh grade by The Third Wheel because in The Ugly Truth he mentions Jordan Jury to be a eighth grader and in The Third Wheel he mentions children above his grade as eighth-graders.Meaning he is either 12 or 13.
• It is revealed in The Last Straw that Greg swears a lot, often swearing at school and even swearing in front of his three or four-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.
• Greg is rarely seen smiling.

Relationships

See Greg's Relationships