MANILA, Philippines - 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 today.
In the film, 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 differently.
Director Donald Petrie was in pre-production in Los Angeles when he first saw the audition tape of Alexis. “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.