Antonia Eugenia Vardalos[1] (Greek: Αντωνία Ευγενία Βαρντάλος, romanized: Antonía Evyenía Vardálos; born September 24, 1962) is a Canadian actress and screenwriter.

[1] She is the daughter of Greek-Canadian parents Doreen Christakos, a bookkeeper and homemaker, and Constantine "Gus" Vardalos, a land developer who was born in Kalavryta.

The next film she starred in, which she also wrote, and in which she also sang and danced, was Connie and Carla, released in 2004; this became a cult-hit musical[citation needed] , and is about two women pretending to be drag queens.

[5] (The plot has been compared to that of Some Like It Hot, the 1959 American romantic comedy film by Billy Wilder, in that the female leads of Connie And Carla were hiding from criminals whose crimes they had witnessed and who could still kill both of them had they been found.)

In 2016, Vardalos adapted Cheryl Strayed's beloved book, Tiny Beautiful Things, and starred in the sold out run of the play at The Public Theater in New York, directed by Thomas Kail.

In this 90 minute interview with producer Mike DeLuca, Vardalos talked about how her experiences in The Second City comedy troupe helped her as an actress and a screenwriter, and how the unofficial "tell-the-Greek" word-of-mouth program had a hand in catapulting her movie to such great heights.

[11][12] That same year, she guest starred in the midseason finale of the first part of season three of the television series Chucky as Evelyn Elliot, a fellow death row inmate in Texas.

[15] In 2013, Vardalos wrote a book about the experience, a New York Times bestseller she titled Instant Mom, and she donates all the proceeds from its royalties to adoption groups.