My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 Director Nia Vardalos Interview

Celebrity Wire

In this interview, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” director Nia Vardalos pays tribute to late co-star Michael Constantine and talks about what making this new movie in the “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” franchise means to her.

Transcript

00:00 I was making my Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 and I started to feel sadness toward the end of it.

00:06 I felt like the story needs to go on. You know, three always feels good, a trilogy.

00:11 And so I thought, I have to do another one.

00:14 And I wanted to tell the story about going back to Greece.

00:18 And the original story was going to be, of course, that we go with Michael Constantine's character back to his village,

00:23 because that's all my dad ever wanted was for us to visit his village.

00:27 And so I wrote this movie about taking Michael Constantine back to Greece.

00:32 And then we, of course, lost Michael Constantine in the same year that I lost my dad.

00:38 And I decided to just channel grief through my fingertips. And here's why.

00:44 I realize if I'm going through it, then the audience must be too, because we started together.

00:49 And in the same way that they're also going through family issues, people are growing up, kids are going off to college.

00:56 Well, of course, we've also probably lost a parent, too.

01:00 I wanted to pay homage to parents, because I think in the familial journey that we are all on,

01:09 you start as a child, and then you start to parent your parents.

01:14 And then eventually, you have to become the parent.

01:17 We all have a family unit and how it grows and evolves.

01:21 And so I wanted to pay tribute to Michael Constantine, because he—

01:26 everyone's got a Michael Constantine story. He's funny.

01:29 And it's hard for me actually to even speak about him in past tense, because he's so much a part of us.

01:34 I've vacationed in Greece for years and years.

01:38 And then I get this outlandish idea that we're suddenly going to make a movie

01:44 taking the big fat Greek family back to Greece.

01:46 And so I wrote the script thinking, "There's no way they're going to let me do it."

01:51 Suddenly we're in Greece, and we're there, and we're scouting locations.

01:54 And I was sending the cast pictures and images of like, "We're going to film here, and this set is available to us,

02:01 and this is the village, its architecture matches this set that we're going to build."

02:06 And I just was telling them things.

02:08 But I did not expect it to come to fruition until the day I saw everybody in dance rehearsal.

02:14 And that's when I realized, "We're doing it. We're actually making this movie.

02:19 And everybody's here in Greece, the homeland."

02:22 I'm glad that I took the plunge to direct the third one.

02:28 I do know that the creative producers had wanted me to direct the second one,

02:32 but I didn't feel that I was ready.

02:34 Even though I had been in the editing room on the first movie,

02:38 in with the orchestra recording the score on the first movie and the second movie,

02:43 I'm always there watching, watching, and learning, and asking questions.

02:47 You've got to ask a lot of questions.

02:49 And the producer, Gary Getzman, said, "You know what the difference is between him and you?"

02:57 He pointed to the director on the second one, and he said, "He thinks he can do it."

03:01 And that really stayed with me.

03:04 And so I learned.

03:06 In the time between the second and third one, while I was doing theater in New York, I studied.

03:10 And I figured out all the angles, all the shot lists, everything I would need, everything I wanted to do.

03:17 And then when they asked me to direct the third one, I very quickly said yes.

03:21 I did a three-part process of preparation.

03:27 I prepared the script.

03:29 As the writer, I went through numerous rewrites,

03:32 and I took every note into consideration from the studio because they're wonderful partners.

03:37 And I wanted to create a movie that we could all be invested in.

03:40 And also, studio executives read a lot of scripts,

03:44 and they can spot ideas that might not have been filled to fruition where they should go.

03:50 So I made sure to absolutely have a script that was in shape.

03:55 To prepare for the role of Tula, I watched the first two movies.

04:02 I tried to match the voice.

04:04 The way I write is from a place of motivation.

04:07 In every single scene, I ask myself, "What does this character want? What does that character want?"

04:11 So throughout the entire movie, I went back through the script,

04:15 and I asked myself what I wanted in every single scene.

04:19 And because Tula is the fixer of the family, sometimes that's, for me, an easy arc.

04:25 But at the same time, you have to be careful that it's relatable to the audience.

04:29 It can't be the all-encompassing motivator of a person because nobody is just the fixer.

04:35 They're also this part and this part, and they have multifaceted parts of their character.

04:40 For directing, I did shot lists, copious, copious amounts of shot lists with Barry Peterson.

04:48 We went to locations. We looked at the sun. We charted where it would be.

04:52 I created what I thought the scene would be.

04:54 He would ask me, "Who is the most important character in this scene?"

04:58 And then we would begin to build a multi-camera shot list.

05:03 We went to this town, and it was very quiet, only 20 inhabitants,

05:08 just like the scene when the family arrives in the village.

05:11 And we were walking around, and I said to Barry, "You know what I really need for that scene

05:16 when we're looking down from the rooftop?

05:19 I would love to have a vantage point, top of the village looking down."

05:23 And we're looking, and we see a church spire, but I'm telling you, it had a rickety balcony around it.

05:30 And I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is where it ends. No, we're not climbing that thing."

05:34 We have 20 crew members with us, and we're walking around looking for where can we go up, up high,

05:39 whispering in this town, and this man appears here, like right here.

05:44 And he goes, "Nia Vardalos?" And I go, "Yes. Hello, how are you, sir?"

05:47 And he says to me in Greek, "Are you looking for a high-up point?"

05:50 And I say, "Yes." And he goes, "Come to my house."

05:52 And so we walk, 20 crew members and me, we walk through the town.

05:56 He opens the door. We walk through his house. He has three floors.

05:59 We walk to the top floor, top floor. He doesn't tell his wife, who's sunbathing nude, that we're coming.

06:05 So she sees him, and she goes, "Ti estudiando Carisota!"

06:08 "What the hell are you doing right now?" And then she goes, "Nia Vardalos."

06:11 And stands up, and she takes the world's smallest face cloth and puts it over one breast and comes and hugs me.

06:18 And we got that house.

06:21 I love it that for 20 years, the audience has told me that they see their family in my family.

06:29 I love that. And I write from the point of view of if it's happening to me, it's probably happening to you.

06:34 So I just want the audience to see themselves in the movie again.

06:39 I want them to know I hear them, and that--

06:43 The audience is very important to me, because I am Tula.

06:47 And in so many ways, if I am Tula, then so are they.

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