Today is the day Nia Vardalos returns to the big screen in Connie And Carla, another crowd pleaser from the woman behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Connie And Carla co-stars Vardalos and Toni Collette as dinner-theatre performers who must hide out in the world of drag queens, pretending to be cross-dressing men.

The similarities between the movies?

"Greeks and drag queens: They're both warm, they both can cook, and they both look fabulous in glitter and sequins," as Vardalos told USA Today.

Oddly enough, she says that pretending to be a man on screen actually brought out her most feminine side. On a recent visit to Toronto to promote the movie, Vardalos said of playing Connie, "This was the most glamorous I've ever gone, in that way. Being trussed into a corset and then putting on those high heels was really different for me. I felt like superwoman in those outfits. I never felt more cinched, more feminine."

Vardalos was careful to do her homework while she wrote Connie And Carla. She hung out and observed in various drag clubs, among them Club Odyssey in Vancouver.

"I watched and watched and watched, I asked question after question. I drained them. I was going to the Queen Mary in the Valley, in Los Angeles, and I asked so many questions one guy finally asked me what I was working on. I just said, 'Oh, I'm writing a little story.' He sighed and said, 'Don't make fun of us, okay?' "

She continues, soberly, "His first instinct, that I would write something that would make fun of these people, was very touching, and I felt a responsibility with it, to ground the story in absolute reality."

Connie And Carla also stars David Duchovny as a straight guy coming to terms with the fact that his brother is one of the drag queens. For a comedy, the film doesn't shy away from tough issues, but Vardalos' script has you laughing with the characters, not at them.

Although she thought the subject matter of Connie And Carla would make it a niche film that would play only in the big cities, Vardalos says she is happily surprised at how well the movie has tested in smaller markets. "We tested so high in Phoenix and in places in middle America, it was shocking. I think it's a much more tolerant society than we're being led to believe."

Connie And Carla came about after the whirlwind that was My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Vardalos -- a vet of Second City performance in both Toronto and Chicago -- decided that what she wanted to do next was, "Tie myself to some post of reality, and do a musical theatre movie, because I know that world.

"I look forward to being just an actor again."


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