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Born in Hollywood in 1956, Rita Wilson’s first role was in The Brady Bunch at the age of 15. She went on to appear in Frasier and The Good Wife, as well as romcom classics such as Sleepless in Seattle and Runaway Bride. She produced the highest‑grossing romcom of all time, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as Mamma Mia! and A Man Called Otto, which starred her husband, Tom Hanks, and son Truman. Alongside her career on screen, she has released music since 2012. Her sixth studio album, Sound of a Woman, is out on 1 May.
My mum took this photo of me in Hollywood. I’d just started high school and was joyful, open and optimistic.
This image captures the start of everything. A few weeks before, on my first day of Hollywood high school, I was walking to class and someone approached me to ask if I would mind getting my photo taken. I said yes, even though I didn’t know what it was for. A couple of days later I got a call saying that I had to go down to the offices of Harper’s Bazaar. They were interested in casting me in a photoshoot for the January 1972 issue as it was the first time 18-year‑olds had been given the right to vote, and they wanted young models. Nobody seemed to mind that I was still only 14 and a half.
On the shoot, I got to meet real, professional models. I asked them how they managed to get booked for the magazine and they told me all about agents. I took their advice and after the shoot I called an agent and said, “I’ve just posed for Albert Watson at Harper’s Bazaar magazine. Would you like to meet me?” They asked for a headshot, so Mum took this photo of me. It wasn’t very glamorous, but it was enough to get me signed.
I had no expectations of what my career would turn into. My parents were immigrants and we didn’t know anybody in the industry. Plus I was pretty content with my life – I loved my family, my school and my friends. My childhood was one of safety – my mum, dad, brother and sister and I lived in a small house in LA. As Mum was Greek, she took cooking seriously. She went to the market every day for fresh ingredients and until she shopped, the fridge was empty aside from a tub of Greek full‑fat yoghurt, a block of feta cheese and a bottle of 7Up. The house was filled with comforting smells of food and the sounds of an AM radio blasting out the Supremes, Al Green, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and Dolly Parton.
My first acting job was The Brady Bunch. I went along to the audition with a friend who wanted to be an actor, and the producers of the show saw me waiting and asked if I’d like to try out for the role of the cheerleader. I got the part, which meant I was suddenly working on my favourite show, with actors I’d loved for years. I’ll never forget the feeling of driving through the studio gates with my mum and thinking, “I can’t believe I’m here!” The whole thing blew my mind.
From that moment on, I was working consistently. As much as I enjoyed it, I sensed my parents were disappointed that I hadn’t gone to college – they valued education because they didn’t have it themselves. I wanted them to be proud, and felt I should commit to the craft – so in my 20s I ended up going to the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art to get formal training. It was incredible – most evenings I went to the theatre, and I lived in an apartment with an incredible gay couple who converted their living room so I could take their bedroom. The only downside was that they had a bathtub with no spray nozzle and I had such long hair that I would have to fill a saucepan to rinse the shampoo off.
Having kids was one of the only times I stopped working – but, even then, I wouldn’t say I properly stepped away. There were just certain jobs I couldn’t commit to, like TV, which often involved blocking off six years. I’m also married to an actor, so if we both worked constantly, we wouldn’t be present for our children, and I didn’t want that. We never had a nanny, and I knew that I wanted to take them to school and to be there when they came home, because that’s what my mum did.
I was flicking through the Los Angeles Times theatre ads in 1997 when I first came across the title: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I thought it was a funny name, so I went along to this 99-seat theatre to see a one‑woman play. It was so hilarious that afterwards I asked to meet Nia Vardalos, the writer, and told her it would make a great movie. She had already written the script for it and handed it over to me. The studios didn’t want to cast her in it because she wasn’t famous. Eventually, we found financiers. We made the movie. But we had to fight for it. I was certain that there was a universal appeal to the family dynamics she had written about. The whole experience was so validating and reminded me of a small but valuable compliment my acting coach gave me when I was a teenager – that I had good taste in material, and good instincts.
I felt a similar feeling of satisfaction as soon as I started songwriting. It was as if I was coming home to myself. I was able to explore ideas and themes that, as an actor, I couldn’t, because I was working with other people’s words. It’s been so empowering to write from my heart and imagination – as if it was a part of myself that I had always wanted to access but was put on hold.
Throughout all the things a woman endures over the course of her life – the periods, pregnancies, births and menopause – I always thought of my body as something that got on with things. In 2015, that changed. I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went on to have a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. At first it was terrifying. I remember saying goodbye to my body in the mirror before the surgery. As much as it was profound and scary, I was so grateful for all the modern medical miracles that were available to me. Now I see my cancer as a gift – an extra lease on life. After that, anything that was not truly important just melted away.
My new album has a song on it called Marriage. It’s about how we change over the years, and it’s about commitment, not only to your partner but to yourself, as a person who wants to keep growing. What I’ve learned from the 38 years I’ve been married, is that it’s a constant. There are going to be ups and downs, but you have to create and maintain it just like anything else in your life.
In many ways, I’m more optimistic now than I’ve ever been – and more unfiltered, too. That’s the gift of getting older: you stop caring what anyone thinks. There’s nothing to hide or prove. But that girl in the photo is still with me. I couldn’t be who I am without her – without every incarnation of myself that came before. These past versions of ourselves, they are not ghosts. They’re our community, our angels. They form who we are, and they carry us, step by step, to the next level.
