Going Greek

>> Creator and star Nia Vardalos and co-star
John Corbett discuss their indie hit
My Big Fat Greek Wedding

by JOANNE LATIMER

“Greek girls don’t leave town,” deadpans Nia Vardalos, the comic from Winnipeg whose one-woman show, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is now a feature film—and a raging success. “My parents were very understanding when I went to Toronto to become an actor. It just wasn’t done!”

Vardalos and her co-star, John Corbett, are staying at the Hotel St. James promoting the film, as is their producer, Gary Goetzman. Vardalos, all tanned and sun-streaked, looks nothing like the Greek wallflower she plays at the beginning of her film. In a hippie top and pencil-thin pants, she explains how the one-woman show turned into a movie.

Cast away

“Rita Wilson saw it and her husband, Tom Hanks, saw it, and she gave me their home phone number!” recalls Vardalos. “Tom and Gary were just setting up their own production company, Playtone, and this is their first project. Other studios approached me to do the film, but they were going to make it Italian or Hispanic, and I wasn’t allowed to play the lead.”

How did Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks get to see her play? First, Wilson is Greek. Secondly, it was playing in Los Angeles, where Vardalos was having trouble finding acting work.
“Casting agents would tell me that I wasn’t a visible minority and I wasn’t white and they couldn’t find anything for me,” she laughs. “One agent wanted to tell people I was Puerto Rican.”

For a little fun one night, she did an improv bit about her Greek wedding at a club. It went over very well. Her husband encouraged her to work it into a bigger play

“We rented out a theatre for $500 per night, we printed flyers and I handed them out at church,” said Vardalos. “The Greeks came, then they brought their friends, and it played for one year… If I was going to be the Greek Girl in town, I wanted to be THE Greek Girl in town.”
There were only 3,000 Greek-Canadians in Winnipeg when Vardalos was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, but she reworked her childhood dramas into hilarious riffs on being the Outsider. She had written 12 comedy reviews for Second City, so she knew how to work a crowd.

Framing Hanks

When reaction to her play was positive, she decided to write a film version. She borrowed a friend’s computer—and some script software—and banged out a draft. Within a few months, Wilson introduced herself backstage and the rest fell in place within a year.

“Tom Hanks really is that guy,” said Vardalos, of the mythos surrounding the two-time Oscar-winner’s nice-guy status. “And he really does love Rita that much. They have a real relationship. He wrote me a letter after seeing the play and I had it framed.”

Vardalos’s co-star, John Corbett, goofs around in the hall with a Polaroid camera, making a ruckus because the power has gone out. Corbett, best known for his role as Aidan the furniture maker on Sex & the City, has a new haircut and could never be accused of taking himself too seriously.
“Yeah, most people see me as this perfect guy because of Aidan,” says Corbett, snapping my Polaroid. “But after meeting me, as you see, I’m just this guy with a pile of dirty dishes at home and a pile of dirty socks who can’t sleep at night. I’m an insomniac.” True, it’s hard to imagine him sleeping. And it’s hard to imagine him as a straight-laced WASP—which he plays in the film.
“I was filming Serendipity in Toronto, sitting in the Sutton Place hotel bar one night. My agent sent me this script for Nia’s film and I’d just read it,” recalls Corbett, with his shirt untucked and wearing baggy jeans. “I was having a drink with the makeup artist, telling her about how I want to be in this movie, and Gary and Nia were sitting next to me! They overheard our conversation and introduced themselves. They offered me the part right there. I didn’t even read for it.”

Corbett, who doesn’t usually do any press, decided to cooperate this time because he wants to promote Nia’s film. “I want this to be as big as it can be,” says Corbett, clearly appreciating the standup-routine-cum-feature-film’s growing success. “We’re making independent film history here.” :

My Big Fat Greek Wedding opens Friday, Aug. 16

>> Movie Listings