Romancing Nia Vardalos in Fox Searchlight's hilarious comedy My Life in Ruins is Greek superstar Alexis Georgoulis who plays tour-bus driver, Poupi. The sweepingly romantic film will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas (Glorietta 4 and Greenbelt 3) starting October 14.
In My Life in Ruins, Georgia (Vardalos) has lost her kefi (Greek
for "mojo"). Discouraged by her lack of direction in life, she works as
a travel guide, leading a rag-tag group of tourists as she tries to
show them the beauty of her native Greece. While opening their eyes to
an exotic foreign land, she too begins to see things in new ways the
process.
Director
Donald Petrie was in pre-production in Los Angeles when he first saw
the audition tape of Alexis Georgoulis, a popular TV star in his native
Greece. "Alexis just jumped off the screen," he remembers. "But he was
one of the first ones to read, so we said ‘Yeah, he's really good, but
we've got to keep looking.' But he set the bar, and even though we must
have spent three months looking at other actors for this role, we
finally realized we weren't going to find anyone better than the first
guy through the door.
One
of the selling points for Petrie was that Georgoulis was able to be
off-putting, even a little scary at first, before evolving into the
handsome leading man. But for Georgoulis, who's making his American
film debut, the job required some adjustments. "It was exciting yet
stressful at the same time," he says.
It
was important to Vardalos that Poupi was a real person who the audience
would relate to. "Alexis was as important to this movie as getting the
permits to shoot at the Acropolis," she says. "We masked this character
for the first third of the movie. We took away an important actor's
tool: his face. We needed a very experienced actor and a very deep
person to pull that off."
"Nia
told me that when she saw me, she said, ‘This is the character,'"
Georgoulis says. "She said the character of Poupi represents the Greek
way of thinking and living. I think if you came to Greece, you would
agree."
"Part romantic comedy, part tale of self-discovery, part travelogue, My Life in Ruins is a journey many people will enjoy," says Petrie.
The
film is constructed much like a real guided tour through Greece.
Consequently, much of the action is set on the tour bus or at the
actual sites that travelers in Greece are likely to visit. Filming
during the height of the tourist season posed a number of challenges.
"One time we were shooting in the middle of the Plaka, the main square
of Athens, kind of like Times Square," says Vardalos. "In the middle of
the scene, I heard some people say, ‘Hey it's that girl from My Big
Fat Greek Wedding. Then they walked right into the shot and kissed me
on the cheeks."