Cerie First Appearance Pilot" Gender Female Age Late teens or early 20s Relatives Four female cousins in Holland Occupation Assistant to Liz Lemon Portrayer Katrina Bowden



Cerie Xerox[1] (pronounced "sir-REE zee-rocks") is a fictional character portrayed by Katrina Bowden[2] in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. [3].

Role on the show [ edit | edit source ]

Cerie is Liz Lemon's attractive young assistant. She is the youngest member on the show's staff but has yet to give out her age (It should be noted that Bowden was 18 when the series started). Much of the humor associated with her character comes from the things she says to and assumes about Liz, though the show portrays this insensitivity as coming from her naïveté rather than any genuine malice.

She is an object of desire for the mostly male staff writers on the show because of her youth and her very revealing clothing. She does not wear bras, saying her breasts hold up well without them. In "Jack the Writer," Liz tried to get Cerie to tone down her attire, so as to not distract the male writers, to no avail. Cerie herself seemed to be naïvely unaware of the effect she has on the male writers, thinking that Liz didn't like her clothing due to her having "one of those body image things." She believes that Liz has been married and has kids, despite being told repeatedly by Liz that neither is true.

Cerie has certain standards when it comes to dating men. In the episode "Jack-tor" she told the staff (and, through the fourth wall, the viewers) that she doesn't date men who don't drink Snapple"[4]. She also appears to be rather lazy as demonstrated in the pilot where, when Liz asked her to get coffee, she politely declined, despite it presumably being part of her job, preferring to lounge on the couch. In "Jack the Writer," she told Liz that her future goals are to "marry rich and then design handbags."

Given the choice of "marry, boff, kill" with Toofer, Kenneth and Lutz, she said she would kill Lutz, marry Toofer, because she considers him "classy," and boff Kenneth. When Liz had to cut staff, Cerie asked her if she could "hang out" with her and that she said that Liz Lemon was her role model. She said that Liz made "smart" look "sexy". However, this should be taken with a grain of salt as Cerie was most likely trying to flatter Liz to avoid being fired, as Cerie made the above statement after Jack Donaghy had told Liz that she had to fire 10 percent of her staff.

Katrina Bowden, the actress who portrays Cerie, says that her character came from a rich family and that "supposedly, her parents got her the job and no one knows why she's there."[5] In "Jack Meets Dennis", Cerie mentions that her mother is "like thirty-eight", which would mean Cerie was born while her mother was still a teenager. Of course, given her general cluelessness, Cerie may have simply gotten her mother's age wrong. As revealed in "Greenzo", Cerie has four "girl cousins" living in Holland, suggesting Cerie may be of Dutch heritage. Her cousins have figures, attire and apparently personalities similar to hers.

In "The Baby Show," Cerie became engaged after dating the unseen Aris for five weeks ("it will be two months in three weeks"). Much to Frank Rossitano's relief, she has stated that she will not cease to wear her revealing attire after her marriage. Aris apparently "does this thing where he screams at limo drivers", which Cerie finds hilarious and thinks Liz would too. Bowden has said that her character's fiancé is a "rich billionaire shipping-heir kind of guy,"[5] though this has not been stated on the show. However, he is often alluded to be wealthy. For example, Cerie stated in "SeinfeldVision" that he would kill her if she bought a wedding dress on sale. in the script for that episode his last name was Evangelopoulous.

When Liz told Cerie that she may be rushing into marriage, Cerie replied that she would only be able to be a "young hot mom" for a limited time and that she didn't want to be "like... fifty" when her children graduate from high school. If their first child is a girl, possible names include "Bookcase", "Sandstorm" and "Hat", though Cerie thinks "Hat" is "more of a boy's name." In "Up All Night," she stated that she and Aris were fighting because he wants a Greek Orthodox wedding and she disagrees with the Church's stance on Cyprus. In the season-two premiere, "SeinfeldVision", Liz and Jenna reluctantly agree to be Cerie's bridesmaids.



