Canadians are funny because if we’re not making each other laugh, we’re going to freeze on the spot.

I was told by an agent in L.A. that I was not fat enough to be a character actress and not pretty enough to be a leading lady. She sent out my headshot and absolutely no one wanted to see me. “You’re not Hispanic, you’re not Asian, you’re not Black. What are you?” she asked. And I said, “I’m Greek.” And she said, “Well, that’s the problem.” I dropped her, and that’s when I decided to just be me.

Actress Rita Wilson is a fairy god-sister. When the studios returned my screenplay for My Big Fat Greek Wedding unopened, I turned it into a solo stage show. Rita came to the show and said, “This should be a movie.” She saw something, liked it and thought other people would like it. If you have advocates, like Rita and my mom, who believe in you and find what you do is valid, you’re going to go pretty far.

When you’re from a funny, loud Greek family, you don’t fit in at school. I wrote Greek Wedding from that outsider perspective. What I’ve found is that no one fits in. No one thinks they’re cool. The people who think they’re cool peak in high school. We know them. And then we see them later and they’re working someplace depressing.

My teenage daughter, Ilaria, and I were home during the pandemic. She was doing homework; I was writing. We’d have breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and got really close. But I hated the loss of freedom for her and her friends. I hosted art days where they could sit in the backyard with masks on and do art. I’d sit far, far away, even though I love nothing more than teen drama and I want to hear it all.

The inspiration for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 is simple: I lost my dad, and then we lost [actor] Michael Constantine. I took all the grief and I wrote what was happening—not only to me but to people who lose a parent. In the film, the father’s last wish was that we go back to his village, and off goes the Portokalos family! —As told to Natasha Stoynoff