DRAWING ON WHAT SHE KNOWS
My Big Fat Greek Wedding actress on fame, Hamilton and her Oscar nomination
Before she steps onstage in Tiny Beautiful Things at the Public Theater, Nia Vardalos washes her face.
To portray Sugar, an anonymous online advice columnist eventually revealed to be Cheryl Strayed (who also wrote Wild) the play’s director, Thomas Kail, wanted her exposed.
After all, Vardalos, who conceived of the play with Kail and Marshall Heyman, and adapted it from Strayed’s book, is channelling a writer late into an exhausting day when, with her husband and two children already asleep, she must reach deep to summon words of wisdom for the lost and lonely.
“There’s something healing in the way she writes about her personal experiences and how revealing she is,” she said of Strayed. “It makes you want to be more candid and transparent in life.”
Like her onstage alter ego, the Canadian-born Vardalos, 54, draws on what she knows, rocketing to fame as the writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, by most tallies the highestgrossing North American rom-com ever.
In an interview at the Public, her hands and arms adorned with fake tattoos, she talked about finding Sugar’s voice and collaborating with Kail, who appeared beyond the office’s glass wall.
“Isn’t he a dreamboat?” she said, beckoning him in amid waves of laughter. “He’s got that sensibility that I love: honest, direct, no drama.”
What was your initial reaction to Tiny Beautiful Things?
I read it on a flight back to Los Angeles and cried so hard. I think two flight attendants said: “You know that Big Fat Greek girl? She is unstable.” I was a wreck. They kept checking on me, “Are you OK?” I ate all my feelings, landed and then called Tommy and said, “We have to get this book.”
So we reached out to Cheryl through social media and she happened to be coming to L.A. the next day. Unbelievable.
She was on the verge of stardom when she took this nonpaying gig.
Cheryl was a published author, making a living — meagre — at writing. She walked around for weeks, asking friends: “Should I do it? Should I not do it?”
She made a list of the pros and cons and ultimately decided to do it — and this is what speaks to me — she said, “Because I wanted to.” That is a common thread in her advice: Do what is right for you.
So while you were adapting the book, Tommy was directing Hamilton? That must have been surreal.
He said, “Hey, come see my rehearsal for the show called Hamilton,” and I was like: “Well, that sounds boring. Sure.” So I went, and Renée (Elise Goldsberry, who played Angel- ica Schuyler) and Lin (Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator, who played Alexander Hamilton) were rehearsing the going-backward scene when Renée reveals that she has been in love with Hamilton from the moment she met him.
I watched Tommy put that scene together. I kept telling myself: “You have now realized that your friend is a genius. You must continue to treat him the same.”
In Instant Mom, your 2013 bestseller, you write about adopting your daughter, Ilaria.
Katie Couric actually told me to write the book.
She said, “Think of the kids that you can get adopted.” Almost every day we will get a letter, a tweet, a Facebook post or meet someone who will say, “I read your book and we have adopted a child.”
You’ve commented in the past that you lost 40 pounds and that’s all anyone wants to talk about.
What I’ve decided is that I just never answer a question about weight — and you can write that — because if I do it will become the whole article and my adage is that we are more than our bodies.
Because I’m given a validity when I am a sample size. I’ve had designers say to my face, “Oh, I want to dress you now that you’re skinny.” And that’s really rude. (Pause) Well, now I just talked about weight.
Besides hosting The Great American
Baking Show with your husband, Ian Gomez, you play a political consultant on Graves (Epix) with Nick Nolte as a former Republican president.
I took that part because I’m not Greek in it, it’s not a romantic comedy, I don’t kiss a guy way out of my league.
Did you feel stereotyped after the huge success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding?
I love the fact that I’m stereotyped because this is my ethnicity. If I’m identified by my nose the rest of my life, I’m OK with that. I grew up looking for myself onscreen and never could find myself. And I believe I am supposed to be Toula to show people that it’s OK to be different.
Plus you received an Oscar nomination. Did things change?
I remember having meetings right after that with studios and they’d laugh so very, very loud and hard at my jokes, and I’d think, “Well, I didn’t get funnier.” People flirt with you. Everyone wants to have sex with a famous person.
You seem to be venturing beyond your comfort zone these days.
I believe that there are moments in everyone’s lives where a door flings open, and if you’re terrified of what’s on the other side you must walk through it.