The first thing is that I feel like there are a lot of these movies like “Victor Victoria” and “Sister Act” and “Shakespeare in Love” and all the Shakespeare plays that involve cross dressing. If we could slide easily into that genre, I would be absolutely honored to be included. There’s also a tip of the hat to “Thelma and Louise.” Michael helped me a lot with trying to be a man trying to be a woman. Sometimes even I was confused. Michael told me that when my mouth is open, it’s more feminine and when it’s closed, it’s more of a masculine line. I was doing a shot where I was listening and apparently my mouth was open and from off camera during the scene Michael goes, “Nia, close your mouth!” I wanted to go, “You close yours.” I tried to dance like a man, not exactly as feminine as I wanted to be, the way that the drag queens did dance. I wanted to do it and sometimes I was more feminine, sometimes more masculine, but in the end I think Michael did a great job of piecing it together.
How tough is it to get the audience to buy the fact the girls were guys?
I think it’s [like] the way David (Duchovny) played it. There was never a moment where there was distaste in his performance. He played it with bewilderment. He wanted to be with this person, Connie, but he couldn’t really figure out why. In his brain, he had reconciled that he was just trying to figure out his brother. I think that’s a way of trying to show unconditional love. You are just attracted to somebody regardless of the package.
How would you describe your writing process?
I call it ‘vomit writing.’ What I do is write, write, write. My first draft is about 250 pages long. All I really wanted to do was write a movie where I get to sing. I thought that would really be fun. And so I sat down and wrote a relationship that mirrored my best friend Kathy Greenwood and my real cousin Nicky who were really close and would always get in trouble. I wanted to write a positive female friendship that wouldn’t be a chick flick and wouldn’t turn off men. I thought it would be fun if these girls were like broads. I thought, this has to happen to Connie and Carla. They get in trouble, that’s good. I kept writing and writing and they get to L.A. and they’re in a bar having a drink and then what else could go wrong? Oh, the two guys they think are their dates kiss. Then the drag show starts and then I thought, “Oh my God, this is the way that they can pursue their dream.”
I made this joke to Michael that when the drag idea when into my head it was like every hair on my body stood on end and, being a Greek girl, that’s a lot of hair. Then I pare it down. Spyglass and Universal came in before the movie was a phenomenon, before “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” It was very heartening to me that they came into my life and wanted to make the other script that I had when “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” had not broken a single record. Michael came in and then we sat down together and Michael said, “I think this relationship could be stronger. I think Connie and Carla need to have different voices.” So then I went back and rewrote and rewrote. Why we love each other so much is because Michael never changed a word of that script unless we talked first. We worked together. We collaborated. If an actor came to me and said, “How do you want me to play this line?” I would say, “Go to Michael because Michael is in charge.”
[The actors] knew their characters so well. They would come to me with the ideas. Our make-up call was 4:00am. I have a little MAC laptop and I would rewrite while I was getting my make-up done, give the whole laptop to somebody who would take it to a production office, plug it in and generate new sides for the actors. I loved that they would learn new lines. Some scenes are exactly from the first draft and sometimes (the actors) would get too far ahead of themselves and we’d have to go, “Okay, no. We’re going to shoot the scenes as in [the script].”
Can you describe the chemistry between you and Toni Collette?
I love it that at one of the test screenings a woman raised her hand and said, “Were those two girls best friends before?” I love that. We met Toni, she came in, we hugged, walked to the piano, started singing and looked at each other like, “What’s going on?” Our voices blended so well, it was just weird. I feel that, with the movie, you just buy a ticket and get on that ride and that’s how we felt too. Two women who love musical theater met across an ocean from each other and got to make this movie. We just felt that we were lucky every day.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Interview with David Duchovny
"Connie and Carla" Photo Gallery
"Connie and Carla" Production News, Trailer and Credits
