Nick Giannopoulos is a Greek-Australian stand-up comedian, film and television actor, writer and producer best known for his comedy stage show Wogs Out of Work, his role in the television copmedy series Acropolis Now and 'Wog Boy' films.
Raised in Preston, Victoria, Giannopoulos's parents migrated to Australia from Greece in 1960. In the mid-1980s he began developing the stand-up show that became known as Wogs Out of Work. The show, made fun of racism, was his attempt to highlight the animosity and racist taunts he and his friends had suffered through their childhood. Through the use of comedy he showed that people from ethnic backgrounds were calling each other 'wog' as a means of diffusing the racial tension. Wogs Out of Work debuted in 1987 and went on to tour nationally throughout 1988 and 1989. Giannopoulos followed Wogs Out of Work with the highly popular television comedy series, Acropolis Now (1989-92) which focused on how multiculturalism was now a common part of Australian life.
In 2000 Giannopoulos released the feature film The Wog Boy, which he co-wrote and co-produced. The film, which attempts to humorously explore the issue of high unemployment, and particularly the difficulties faced by ethnic youths in attempting to overcome racial stereotyping, went on to become the 15th highest grossing Australian movie to that time. Three years later he co-wrote, co-produced and directed The Wannabes (2003), a film about a talentless entertainer who is hired to create a children's entertainment group (The Wannabees), the members of which are secretly planning the theft of a diamond necklace. In 2010 Giannopoulos released Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos, which sees Steve, the protagonist of the first film travel to Greece with his best mate Frank to claim an inheritance.
