How Kidding star Judy Greer kept her stepdaughter from having sex in high school

Any parent knows that when you’re dealing with kids, sometimes you have to play dirty. In the new Showtime dramedy Kidding, Catherine Keener’s character Deirdre refuses to let her daughter Maddy (Juliet Morris) take a shower until she eats her vegetables, and when EW spoke to Keener and her Kidding costar Judy Greer — who plays Jill, Deirdre’s sister-in-law and mom to a rebellious son — the conversation turned to real-life extreme parenting techniques.

Greer — a stepmom to two children with her husband, Real Time with Bill Maher exec producer Dean Johnsen — revealed that she once turned a family movie night into a teachable (though not necessarily truthful) moment. “I lied to my stepdaughter once, when we watched Uncle Buck,” Greer says. “She really loved the actress who played the teenage girl, and she said, ‘Why isn’t she a movie star?'” That’s when Greer got creative. “I said, ‘Because she got pregnant in high school and had to quit acting forever,’ which was a lie. My stepdaughter was like, ‘Oh my God!'”

“That’s so f—ed up!” replies Keener with a laugh, and Greer admits that in retrospect, her white lie was “really bad.” Then again, says the actress, “I’m sure she doesn’t even remember.”

Kidding premieres Sunday, Sept. 9 at 10 p.m. ET on Showtime.