THROWBACK TO 2002 - MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

WHO CELEBRATES THE REVOLUTIONARY CULT CLASSIC AS IT TURNS 20

- Penelope Clifton

Nia Vardalos was a struggling actor when she ditched her agent and followed her gut, using what very little money she had to write a screenplay and take it to a humble 99-seat theatre in Los Angeles.

Her one-woman show about a middle-class Greek-American woman who falls in love with an upper middle-class Anglo-Saxon protestant caught the attention of a very famous actress – and the rest, as they say, is history.

It was Rita Wilson (aka Mrs Tom Hanks) who stumbled across a one-timeonly advertisement in the LA Times promoting My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and being of Greek descent herself, decided to go check it out.

She loved it. So much so that she took along her hubby Hanks and producer friend Gary Goetzman, and the trio decided Vardalos’ brainchild needed to be made into a film, with the creator herself as the female lead, Toula Portokalos, opposite Sex and the City’s John Corbett as Ian Miller.