Nia Vardalos and John Corbett reprise their roles in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, the long-awaited follow-up to the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time.George Kraychyk
One time, when Nia Vardalos was in a meeting with producer Gary Goetzman, a partner with Tom Hanks in the independent film company Playtone, she asked if she could use one of his pencils.
"Go ahead," he told her. "You paid for it."
Hanks likes to do the same thing – jokingly remind her of their unanticipated blockbuster success with My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002. Filmed on a budget of $11-million, the story of Toula Portokalos and her hilariously overbearing Greek family went on to become the highest-grossing independent film ever, earning more than $240-million (U.S.) at the North American box office. The film also won Vardalos an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
"Have a seat in one of the chairs that you bought," Hanks often tells her when she comes to his office, she reports. "They didn't know, either, when they chose to make my movie their first. None of us knew," she explains. "Our friendship grew under the most organic circumstances," she adds. "It came before the success of the movie. We couldn't get it released."
But for all the success of the original movie, a sequel – the go-to choice in Hollywood – didn't materialize until now, almost 14 years later. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 hits theatres Friday, produced once again by Playtone.
Vardalos couldn't write it in the immediate aftermath of the original's success because of personal difficulties. "I can no longer hide that I am Toula," she explains. "At the end of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I had written that my character was a mother. That was wishful thinking. I had already gone through biological disappointments at that point, so how could I write a sequel? First of all, the press tour would be very difficult – and invasive. Also, I didn't know if I would be a mom and what it would entail."
In 2008, after 13 failed in-vitro treatments, she and her husband, actor Ian Gomez, adopted a three-year-old daughter, Ilaria, who is now almost 11. In 2013, she wrote a book about that journey, Instant Mom, which is part memoir and part adoption manual. Vardalos is more schoolyard mom than movie star. Frequently, the subject of her daughter rises to the top of our conversation in a sort of excited, conspiratorial confession.
"Tom and Rita baptized her!" Vardalos squeals over the phone from New York, referring to Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson. When asked why weddings are comic fodder for her as a writer, she says she "wants to show what happens when a family comes together to pull something off." In the next breath, she describes how her entire extended family came to Los Angeles for her daughter's baptism. "Ilaria was almost five, and she chose her own theme. I was watching my Greek family drive all over Los Angeles to fulfill this beautiful child's wish to be a mermaid because she was going to be fully immersed. It was just so sweet. It always takes nine of us to plan a party for 10."
Vardalos freely admits to being an overly attached mother. "I'm not much fun to other mothers, because when they want to go for coffee, I don't want to. I want to be with my daughter. They make fun of me." In that real-life moment, a movie idea was spawned.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 brings us back into the bosom of the Portokalos family 10 years later. Toula and her husband, Ian (John Corbett) have a daughter, Paris, who is 17. Played by Elena Kampouris, Paris struggles to break free of her clingy family as she contemplates where to attend college. A family secret leads to an unexpected wedding, healing rifts amid big hairdos, loud dresses and louder music. The screenplay took four years for Vardalos to write, as certain pieces took time to fall into place. In the end, many of the scenes were inspired once again by her own family.
"I just knew [the screenplay] wasn't done until about two years ago. It was very cold in Canada, specifically in Winnipeg, and I said to my parents, 'Come and live with us for a couple of months in L.A. You can be with Ilaria.' It was so much fun. I didn't cook a meal! As soon as we would finish breakfast, my mom was like, 'Alright, I'm going to make short ribs for dinner.' But watching my parents' dynamic made me go back to the script. I was watching them like a documentary. And I was like, 'I know what it is. I am not just Ilaria's mother. I am a daughter, a sister and an aunt.' Understanding the Rubik's Cube of us all was what made me go back and I took a paintbrush to the script."
Reassembling the original cast was important to Vardalos. The film was also shot in Toronto as the original had been. And there are sentimental additions to the cast. Rita Wilson plays Anna, a family friend. "She's my fairy godsister," explains Vardalos. "I wanted to do a little moment of inclusion in the same way that I have always felt included in their world."
The collaboration with Playtone on the original movie had started when Wilson, who is also a partner in the film company, saw Vardalos's solo stage show of the material for the first My Big Fat Greek Wedding in L.A. Unable to get anyone interested in the screenplay version, Vardalos, a former member of The Second City comedy troupe, had mounted a solo show on a shoestring budget. Wilson, who is Greek, loved it and convinced her husband to come and see it. Since then, Vardalos has frequently worked on projects with Playtone, optioning books and collaborating on films. Wilson produced some of Vardalos's subsequent movies, Connie and Carla and My Life in Ruins. And Vardalos co-wrote Larry Crowne, a 2011 romantic comedy, with Hanks.
None of her film endeavours were as popular as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In many ways, it is both child and parent. It gave birth to her as a Hollywood player. And yet, she feels protective of it, worrying about what it might become if she's not careful. I interviewed Vardalos in 2000, when she was filming the original. We talked for hours, like instant girlfriends. She was a Cinderella, dressed in baggy sweatpants and T-shirt, her hair twisted on top of her head. She couldn't quite believe her luck. And maybe, part of her way of surviving the bright lights of stardom, which can eclipse the authentic creative self that turned them on in the first place, is to remain fiercely grounded. Her family helps her achieve that, she says. "If I started to say, 'My agent phoned,' and didn't laugh, my family would tell me to get over myself … I'm still a Winnipegger that got invited to this fancy Hollywood party."
Opportunities after the original movie were big and fat – and fast – but Vardalos resisted most of them. There were offers for everything from a My Big Fat Greek Wedding cookbook to a My Big Fat Greek Wedding dance video. "For me, I have to be true to my ethics side," she explains. She did do a spin-off TV series for CBS, My Big Fat Greek Life, but it was cancelled after seven episodes.
Does she worry about being defined by her Toula character? "I have no issue with it because I am Greek. It's like wearing a comfortable sweater. I am Toula in the same way that Robert De Niro will play many Italian characters in his lifetime."
Still, there was trepidation about how to fill the shoes of the first movie. It had been conceived and created with few expectations – not an easy magic to recreate when so much money, success and stardom have come along in the interim. Now 53, she admits to some nervousness about reprising the role. "Before we started, I had my writer hat on, my producer hat on, and Gary [Goetzman] said to me, 'Before we start production, look at the [first] movie again in a quiet moment.'" What did she see? "The kindness in John Corbett's eyes. It is still there to this day. He was so patient with me on that film. I didn't know what I was doing. And you just have to let yourself be in the moment and fall in love a little bit. I just saw the innocence we all had. After that moment, when I saw the film again, I said the same thing to the cast. I said, 'Just remember we made a little film and wasn't it fun?'"