IT’S been 21 years since My Big Fat Greek Wedding burst onto cinema screens – and the trailer for the third film has just been released.
The original rom-com followed Toula Portokalos’s struggles to find love and accept her identity.
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It was a massive success at the box office bringing in £296million from a budget of just £4m.
The cast has reunited for the third installment, set for release in September, which sees the family visits Greece after the death of Toula’s dad Gus.
While it remains a fan favourite, away from the cameras there’s been barrel-loads of real-life drama that even the family’s favourite fix Windex couldn’t solve.
From an arrest to marriage breakdowns and a casting row, we reveal what happened next to the My Big Fat Greek Wedding cast.
Antonia Vardalos
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Canadian actress Antonia ‘Nia’ Vardalos starred as unlucky-in-love Toula, who fell for non-Greek Ian Miller and finally found acceptance for who she was.
In the film, her family were desperate for her to marry and have children – and sadly, fertility was a struggle faced by the star while married to Ian Gomez, who plays Mike in the film.
The actress, now 60, spent nine years trying to conceive, going through 13 rounds of IVF and looking into surrogacy before finally adopting their daughter Ilaria.
She wrote about taking in the three-year-old, who was previously in foster care, in the book Instant Mom, which became a New York Times bestseller.
Antonia and Ian divorced in 2018 but appear to be on good terms with her ex describing the film as a “really sweet franchise” that helped “families get back together”.
Away from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, she’s starred in Cougar Town, Grey’s Anatomy, Helicopter Mom and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
John Corbett
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Floppy-haired John Corbett played heartthrob Ian Miller but is better known as Aidan Shaw, Mr Big’s love rival, in Sex And The City.
Recently the actor, now 62, came under fire for incorrectly “confirming” he would appear in “quite a few episodes” of Sarah Jessica Parker’s spin-off series And Just Like That.
The show’s furious writer Julie Rottenberg told Deadline: “John Corbett should be writing personal apology notes. We didn’t say anything.”
Thankfully his personal life has had a little less drama. He’s been in a relationship with the actress Bo Derek since 2002 and married her in 2020.
They were set up on a blind date by agent Norby Walters when John had no one to take to an Oscars party.
Recalling the matchmaking In 2005, he told Today: “I said, ‘I’m not dating anyone,’ and he said, ‘I’ll get you a date, Corbett!’ And he set me up with Bo.”
John has starred in Portlandia, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll alongside Lady Gaga and this year appears in How I Met Your Father – a spin-off of How I Met Your Mother.
Michael Constantine
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Tributes poured in after the death of Michael Constantine, who played Toula’s proud father Gus.
He passed away from natural causes at the age of 94, in September 2021.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is dedicated to the actor, whose career spanned back to 1959 and notably he was awarded an Emmy for his role in Room 222.
Michael married and divorced twice, first to the actress Julianna McCarthy, who he met on the set of Inherit The Wind and had two children with, and then to Kathleen Christopher.
Lainie Kazan
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Former model Lainie Kazan was already a big name before appearing in the film and previously posed nude for Playboy.
Since playing Maria in the rom-com, she’s appeared in Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family and RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Lainie, now 83, has battled deep vein thrombosis since the Seventies and in 2016 was hospitalised after a car collision but made a swift recovery.
In 2017, Lainie was arrested for stealing £150 ($180) of groceries which reportedly included cleaning supplies, a hot rotisserie chicken, tomatoes, Jell-O and uncured pepperoni, in California.
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She initially denied the allegations but later took a plea deal where she would participate in a Neighbourhood Justice Programme.
In 2021, Lainie revealed her early struggles in Hollywood to Page Six and claimed: “There wasn’t a man I met with that didn’t try to sleep with me”. She says she turned down their advances.
Gia Carides
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Gia Carides played cousin Nikki in My Big Fat Greek Wedding just four years after her role in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
The actress, 58, was married to fellow actor Anthony LaPaglia for 15 years until 2017, and they share a 20-year-old daughter, Bridget. After their split, Gia hit out at sources who claimed their relationship “failed”.
She told The Daily Telegraph: “People say it’s failed. My attitude is that it didn’t… 20 years is a long time for any relationship and so many positive and great things came out of it.”
They sold their £6.5m ($8.2m) mansion shortly after Anthony started dating Alexandra Henkel, an actress 31 years younger than him, in 2016.
Ian Gomez
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After playing Mike in the film, Ian Gomez had roles in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lost, Cougar Town and Grey’s Anatomy.
The actor, now 58, and his then-wife and film co-star Nia presented The Great American Baking Show for two years together.
Similarly to the My Big Fat Greek Wedding character Ian, the star converted to Greek Orthodoxy so that he could marry Nia but the pair divorced in 2018.
Joey Fatone
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Joey Fatone was already a huge star before playing cousin Angelo in the film because he was a member of the boyband NSYNC.
After hits including Together Again and No Strings, he branched out into acting and bagged roles in Robot Chicken, Kim Possible and Hannah Montana.
In 2007, Joey placed second in Dancing With The Stars – America’s version of Strictly – and during a guest appearance 12 years later suffered a wardrobe malfunction.
He told USA Today: “I literally ripped the pants from the front to the back and then I just sat in the judge’s chair and said, ‘Oh well, you didn’t notice it.'”
Joey has also appeared in The Masked Singer, Impractical Jokers and Family Feud.
In his personal life, the 46-year-old briefly date popstar Pink in the early noughties before reuniting with his school sweetheart Kelly Baldwin in 2002.
They married two years later and have two daughters, Kloey and Joely, both of whom share NSYNC member Lance Bass as a godfather.
In 2020, Joey confirmed he was “100 per cent” divorced from wife Kelly, in an interview with US Weekly.
He has been dating Brazilian Izabel Araujo for five years.
Andrea Martin
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Away from the film, Andrea Martin voiced animated characters in Anastasia, The Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, The Simpsons and SpongeBob SquarePants.
The star, 76, who has won two Emmys for her screenwriting, went down a storm as Aunt Voula in the My Big Fat Greek Wedding films.
She’s also appeared in 30 Rock, Will And Grace, Modern Family, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Black Christmas.
In her personal life, she shares two sons with screenwriter Bob Dolman, and in 2017, the American became a Canadian citizen after living there for 47 years.
Louis Mandylor
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Louis Mandylor played Nick in My Big Fat Greek Wedding but before acting was both a professional boxer and footballer in Australia.
Since then the actor, now 56, has also landed small parts including in the TV show Charmed and the film Sinners And Saints.
Stavroula Logothettis
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Stavroula Logothettis brought the part of Toula’s big sister Athena to life.
She married writer and activist Danylo Hawaleshka in 1996 and appeared in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Earthquake In New York and Harisma.
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