The star of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ discusses her Greek upbringing, being a single mom, and creating the third installment of her romantic comedy.
Nia Vardalos, aged 60, shares an amusing mishap as she reveals a bandaged hand from twisting her fingers while opening a water bottle, not from sports or adventurous activities. Despite the minor injury, her sense of humor shines through as she discusses her upcoming project, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3,” set to hit theaters on September 8th, during her trip to Canada to visit family.
You probably recall the initial “Greek Wedding” film that premiered in a few theaters back in early 2002. It turned into a massive romantic comedy sensation, ruling the box office for months. It’s known as the most financially successful rom-com ever, making nearly $369 million globally, a remarkable achievement considering its small $5 million budget. If you missed it, you might be one of the very few who didn’t catch it because nearly everyone else did.
Nia Vardalos wrote and acted in a movie based on her own Greek immigrant family’s experiences. It got nominated for an Oscar for its script and received recognition from many other film groups. This movie started a series, and now, the third part is almost here, 20 years later!
She can still recall the exact moment 21 years ago this summer when her small independent film was playing in around 100 theaters, a few weeks after it came out in April.”
“I was in Greece on vacation,” Vardalos recalls, “and I remember the producers calling me, asking when I’d be back.” They wanted her to go on a promotional media tour, which is usually done before a movie is released. However, something extraordinary was happening with My Big Fat Greek Wedding; it had become a must-see hit through word of mouth, and it was now opening in 2,000 more locations. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “It just kept going and going. When it finally left theaters, it had been there for a whole year. I think I had a constant smile on my face for that entire year.”
Nia Vardalos, the actress and writer of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” was surprised by the movie’s unexpected success. She described it as a time of trying to understand how her creation became so popular, even leading her to host Saturday Night Live. Since then, she has pursued various projects in film, TV, stage, and writing but hasn’t found the same connection with audiences as her Greek wedding story. She thinks the key to the movie’s success was its relatable, eccentric family, which resonated with many people, regardless of their Greek heritage.
“People in the audience say, ‘My family is also crazy!'” This is what Vardalos, who wrote, starred in, and directed all three Wedding films, mentions.
Nia Vardalos, whose full name is Antonia Eugenia Vardalos, grew up in Manitoba, Canada, not far from the U.S. border. Her dad, known as “Gus,” moved from Greece to Nova Scotia when he was young and later settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba. There, he met Doreen at a Greek Orthodox church, and they got married. Gus worked in construction, while Doreen was a bookkeeper and homemaker. They taught Nia and her siblings the importance of their Greek heritage, family, and staying close to each other.
When Nia was little, she discovered the joy of making people laugh. In her family, being funny was a way to get attention. They loved to eat big meals, especially on Sundays, and these gatherings were a chance for friends and relatives to come together and enjoy delicious Greek dishes. After indulging in food like baklava, moussaka, keftedes, and spanakopita, Nia and her 27 cousins would lie on their backs with their heads on each other’s full stomachs. They’d share funny stories and jokes, trying to make everyone burst into infectious laughter.
She describes her family as friendly and never mean. They teased each other but never crossed the line to be rude because keeping the family together mattered more than making jokes. This supportive environment gave her a lot of confidence. She also gained her sense of humor by watching funny people like Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, and Monty Python in movies and on TV, which she found incredibly clever and enjoyable.
After finishing high school in Winnipeg, Vardalos went to Ryerson University in Toronto to study theater. However, her confidence took a hit when she faced criticism about her appearance and suitability for certain roles. Then, one night, she visited Second City, a famous improv theater in Toronto, where she discovered what she had been searching for: talented actors creating various characters on stage through improvisation.
Vardalos went to Ryerson University in Toronto for theater after high school in Winnipeg. But her confidence dropped when people criticized how she looked and whether she was right for certain roles. One night, she went to Second City, a well-known improv theater in Toronto, and found what she’d been looking for: talented actors making up characters on the spot on stage.
She went to Los Angeles hoping to get a role in a TV show, but she was surprised by how unkind people could be. They criticized her for her looks and body size, and sometimes said she didn’t match the specific ethnicity or nationality required for certain roles. She did get a few small roles in movies, did voiceover work, and appeared in a few TV comedies, but these were usually very minor roles, and she wasn’t even given credit for some of them.
During a tough time in the late 1990s, she decided to take control of her career. She decided to write a movie script that had a role tailor-made for her. She used a friend’s computer and wrote about her own marriage to someone who wasn’t Greek (her parents were from Puerto Rico), and how her family in Winnipeg reacted to their cross-cultural relationship. When she was done, she had a finished script that could be the basis for a movie. Finally, she felt like she had created something that could be a good match for her.
Without an agent, Nia Vardalos faced rejection when trying to share her script with studios. Undeterred, she decided to turn it into a one-woman play and performed it in Los Angeles in 1997. Rita Wilson, who could relate to the Greek culture in the play, saw potential in Nia’s performance and introduced her to her husband, Tom Hanks, who was getting into filmmaking at the time.
After reading her script, Tom Hanks believed Nia Vardalos had touched on something that was relatable to a wider audience than just a solo performance. He thought her story could make a successful movie because it had universal appeal. Nia felt validated by his perspective because she had written it with the belief that if she found it funny, others would too.
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson decided to produce Nia Vardalos’ movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which began production in 2000, even though it was set in Chicago, they filmed it in and around Toronto. In the film, Nia played the main character, Toula Portokalos, a woman in her thirties from a lively Greek-American family. The story revolves around her falling in love with a non-Greek teacher, Ian Miller, and their journey culminating in a big, joyous Greek wedding that involves her entire extended family.
After finishing the movie, Wilson and Hanks became very close friends with Vardalos, even though Hollywood can be a challenging place. They also produced the movie’s sequels, and they enjoy working together. Vardalos relates to her character Toula in many ways, having experienced an awkward childhood, feeling like an outsider in school, and becoming shy and uncertain about her future. Like Toula, she didn’t really find her stride until later in life, around the age of 40 when My Big Fat Greek Wedding was released.
Nia Vardalos still feels like an outsider in Hollywood, even after her movie’s success. She often questions why she’s at parties with famous people and never quite feels like she fits in. She sees herself as very similar to her character, Toula, and believes that she writes from the perspective of an outsider. The second movie, released in 2016, brought back most of the original cast, including Vardalos, Corbett, and other familiar faces from the first film.
The new My Big Fat Greek Wedding movie is even more grandiose and Greek-centric than the previous ones. It reunites the entire Portokalos family, including most of the original actors, for a family reunion in Athens. Filming in Greece was an incredible experience for Vardalos, making her feel rejuvenated. There are rumors that another wedding will be featured in the movie, though not necessarily theirs, but Nia Vardalos and John Corbett will continue to be central to the story as the couple whose romance started it all. Vardalos expresses deep gratitude for her co-star, Corbett, both as a person and as her on-screen husband, believing that their successful partnership owes much to his involvement.
Sadly, Michael Constantine, who played Toula’s father, won’t be in the new film because he passed away in 2021 at the age of 94 before the production of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. He had a close relationship with Nia Vardalos, even referring to himself as her “other dad” when her father passed away in 2020. The movie acknowledges the loss of her “movie” father, and Vardalos incorporated her own experiences with grief and the desire to be a good child to her parents into the film.
Nia Vardalos incorporated a powerful message into her latest movie, inspired by the tragic 2015 photos of a Syrian boy who drowned while his family tried to escape the Syrian Civil War. She wanted to convey that we are all humans, and it’s unjust when people are forced from their homes due to famine, war, or economic hardship and are met with unwelcoming societies. Immigration is close to her heart as the child of an immigrant father, and she believes that very few can claim to be the rightful owners of a country like the United States.
This isn’t the first time she’s woven a message into her Greek Wedding films. In the second film, she gently addressed issues of tolerance and acceptance when a character came out as gay. Despite some resistance to these messages, she remains committed to spreading them.
In these movies centered around a large, loving family, Vardalos feels blessed to have both a close biological family and a close film family, and she cherishes the strong bonds they share.
In her own family, Nia Vardalos is the middle child, with a brother in Australia, an older sister retired in Greece, and a younger sister who teaches in Toronto. She has a strong nurturing instinct and strives to create a happy environment, whether it’s hosting dinner parties or on a film set.
Vardalos adopted her teenage daughter, Ilaria, with her former spouse after a challenging journey to parenthood. They divorced in 2018 after 23 years of marriage, and she prefers not to delve into the details. Despite this, she remains a hopeful romantic and believes in love. She’s currently in a romantic relationship but chooses to keep it private.
She’s passionate about adoption advocacy and mentoring aspiring writers. In her Hollywood community, she’s found a sense of belonging among fellow celebrities with Greek heritage, including Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, and others. They celebrate Greek Easter together, attending church and enjoying a festive lamb roast at Jim Gianopulos’ house.
Vardalos enjoys being part of this close-knit Greek community, known for their lively gatherings.