BIOGRAPHY
Read an in-depth bio on Toni Collette |
THE EARLY DAYS
Collette grew up in Blacktown, an hour away from Sydney. Her
father, Bob, was a truck driver while her mother, Judy, worked for a courier company.
The family would be completed by two younger brothers.
When Toni was 6, the Collettes moved out to the suburbs, where she found herself
mercilessly teased for being a "westie". But she fell quickly into suburban life. The
family kept cats, dogs, birds and rabbits and Toni, hanging with her brothers and very much
a tom-boy, would climb trees, ride her bike, play basketball, basically lived an energetic
Australian life. At 14, she was cast in a school
performance of Godspell, and that was pretty much that, Toni being one of those lucky few
who find their vocation early. At 16, with the support of her parents, Toni decided to leave school and enrol at the
National Institute of Dramatic Arts on a three-year course.
From left to right: Toni at age 15 at the Blackstown Girls High School. With Geraldine
Turner in her professional stage debut "A Little Night Music". Opposite Ben Mendelsohn
in her motion picture debut "Spotswood". In her breakthrough role in "Muriel's Wedding"
and with "Muriel" director P.J. Hogan at the film's premiere in Sydney.
Ever headstrong and keen to follow her instincts, she left after a mere 18 months to act for
real in her feature film debut, "Spotswood", starring Anthony Hopkins as an efficiency
expert brought into a moccasin factory to cut costs. Focusing on everyone else's business,
he neglects his own home life and must change his attitudes sharpish. Toni played the
sweet but plain Wendy, who loves the straight-up Ben Mendelsohn, who in turn has a crush
on the boss's daughter. Toni had a great time filming, particularly when hanging out with
co-star Russell Crowe. "Russell took me out, got me drunk, gave me pot and wiped up the vomit when I
couldn't handle it," she told Time Out New York.
It's unsurprising, because Spotswood was a great experience for a young actress who was barely
18. Better still, she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress by the Australian Film
Institute.
YOU'RE TERRIBLE, MURIEL
Now, Toni concentrated on theatre. With the Sydney Theatre Company, she played Petra in "A Little Night Music" and Meg in "Away". In 1992,
she won a Critics' Circle Award as Best Newcomer for her performance as Sonya in Chekhov's
"Uncle Vanya". There would also be Aristophane's "Frogs" at the famous Belvoir Street Theatre
(directed by Geoffrey Rush), "Summer Of The Aliens", and she'd play Cordelia in "King Lear".
Toni supported herself by delivering pizzas. She did not have to wait long for this to change. In 1992, she went up for the role of Muriel Heslop in PJ
Hogan's unruly comedy "Muriel's Wedding". Enduring life with a cruel and dominating local
politician father in Porpoise Spit, Muriel finds herself cast aside by her friends, so she
steals some money and takes off on a exotic holiday, looking for love and marriage. A very
special actress was needed, someone who could reveal the terrible torment and turmoil
inside the outwardly cheery Muriel, someone who could really enjoy the extravagant highs of
Muriel's holiday - including a storming rendition of Abba's Waterloo with Rachel Griffiths.
Toni won the part, working with a dietician and putting on 40 pounds for the role, in just
seven weeks. And she was wonderful, winning Best Actress from the Australian Film Institute
and, as the film slowly grew into a worldwide success, also picking up a Golden Globe
nomination for Toni. International success was beginning to beckon, but Toni remained in Australia for her next
two projects, both challenging enough to interest this artistically ambitious young tyro.
First came "Lilian's Story", about a woman who leaves a mental institution after 40 years,
with Toni playing the young Lilian, when she's first beaten down by her controlling and
unspeakably un-encouraging father. Once more she was honoured by the AFI, this time as Best Supporting Actress.
After this came more nuttiness with "Cosi", where a young theatre director tries to put on a
performance of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte in a home for the rehabilitation of mental patients
- a problem as none of the inmates speak Italian. Toni was here re-acquainted with director
Mark Joffe, who'd helmed "Spotswood," and Rachel Griffiths, who played the young director's
girlfriend. Toni herself played an enthusiastic recovering drug addict. Again, she was
tremendous, and also sang once more - performing Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" over
the credits.
Now came the Hollywood debut proper, with a minor role in "The Pallbearer", reasonably
amusing with Friends star David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead. Toni's next
movie, though, was far classier. Teaming up with Paltrow again in Jane
Austen's "Emma", she played the plain and unsophisticated Harriet Smith who's taken on as a
project by Paltrow's compulsively matchmaking Emma Woodhouse.
From left to right: At the Golden Globe Awards in 1996 where Toni
was nominated for "Muriel's Wedding". At the AFI Award the same year, winning Best Supporting
Actress for "Lilian's Story". With Gwyneth Paltrow in her first international feature
"Emma". At the Sydney premiere of another successful drama, "Cosi", and in the 1997
comedy "Diana & Me".
1997 saw no fewer than four Collette appearances. In
"Clockwatchers", she played a wallflower of a temp at a credit agency who falls in with
bored workers as they try anything to relieve the tedium. Then she departed the US for the UK and home. In "The James
Gang", she played obsessive cop Julie Armstrong, who's chasing down a family who've come to
London looking for their father, then robbed a jewellery store and taken off for Edinburgh.
With "Diana and Me", one of Collette's most controversial film also released in 1997.
Toni played a woman who shares the name and
birthday of Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. Winning a competition, she travels to London
with her dullard fiance, but ends up with the paparazzi as they chase Diana around the
city. Unfortunately, what might have been a cheerful look at the media, delusional
behaviour and the price of fame became an entirely different kettle when the real-life
Spencer died, while engaging in a high-speed chase with photographers.
Toni moved on to "The Boys", a really gritty drama where a psycho is released from jail into
Sydney's western suburbs, meets up with his equally rough brothers, the three having no
real power but rocketing levels of testosterone. Toni played Michelle, the main man's
brassy blonde girlfriend who argues with him furiously, raising passions as, drinking and
drugging himself, he gets more and more crazy, till there can only be a brutal outcome.
Achieving an intensity she had not before reached onscreen, Toni became the AFI's Best
Supporting Actress yet again.
CLAIMING TO INTERNATIONAL FAME
Now came intensity of a different kind. In Todd Haynes' "Velvet Goldmine", Toni was required
to play Mandy Slade, ex-wife of a glam rock star who went missing in the
Seventies and is now being tracked by journalist and former fan.
Toni began 1999 in the art-house with Peter Greenaway's 8½ Women. Here, after the death of
his wife, a middle-aged fellow, along with his son, organises a harem of thoroughly varied
women. Toni stood out as Griselda, a wannabe nun they save from prison but, despite the presence of Toni, the film
was little more than a cold erotic fantasy. Toni appeared with her head
shaved - a repeat performance for her.
From left to right: As Mandy Slade in Todd Haynes' "Velvet Goldmine".
Opposite Hayley Joel Osment in the surprise hit "The Sixth Sense". At the 2000 Academy
Awards where Toni was nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Opposite Mandy Patinkin in
her Broadway debut "The Wild Party" and as a nominee again at the 2000 Tony Awards.
Toni's next movie was the surprise mega-hit of 1999. In M. Night Shyamalan's
"The Sixth Sense" Toni played Lynn Sear, the desperate mother of Haley Joel Osment's Cole,
working several jobs to keep him and worried sick by his belief that he can see dead
people. As Osment works out a relationship with Bruce Willis's therapist, Toni provides the
movie with an all-important mother's heart. Toni Collette's performance was praised by the
critics and won her an Oscar nomination in 2000. On the heels of "The Sixth Sense", Toni was
seen opposite Samuel L. Jackson in a remake of "Shaft" and making her broadway debut opposite
Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt. In "The Wild Party", she played the platinum-haired
vaudeville dancer and raunchy hostess Queenie. Toni, who'd of course been a
singer and dancer right from her earliest days in theatre, was superb, picking up both a
Theatre World Award and a Tony nomination.
Recognized on the international screen and stage, Collette traveled to Ireland to shoot
the offbeat "Hotel Splendide", in which she played a hotel cook. In late 2000, she was seen
on American television in HBO's "Dinner with Friends". While performing a wild variety of
women in smaller films, Hollywood offered her a thankless supporting role in Roger Michell's
thriller "Changing Lanes", playing Ben Affleck's colleague. Toni jumped between three continents
in 2002: She performed Sharon in David Caesar's Australian comedy "Dirty Deeds", and played
a suicidal hippie mum in the Weitz Brother's acclaimed "About a Boy". The critics applauded
Hugh Grant's performance as best in years, but he was certainly helped by Toni who, as ever, brought serious emotional
depth to proceedings, preventing him from simply sounding flip. In late 2002, Toni was part
of Stephen Daldry's all-star cast in his adaptation of Michael Cunningham's novel
"The Hours", opposite Julianne Moore and co-starring Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman
From left to right: With husband Dave Galafassi at the Toronto
premiere of "In her Shoes". As the stressed out mom in "Little Miss Sunshine". Playing
a relief worker in the mini-series "Tsunami: The Aftermath". At the Golden Globe Awards
in 2007 where she was nominated for both roles. Performing her debut album "Beautiful
Awkward Pictures" at a concert.
With "Japanese Story", Toni Collette again won praises for her "career-best performance"
as geologist Sandy Edwards, who's out in the Australian wilderness with a Japanese
businessman in a tale of "human inconsequence in the face of the blistering universe".
Since then, Collette has been cast in a variety of American comedies: She played a fucked-up
actress in the largely panned "The Last Shot", opposite Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick.
In "Connie and Carla", Toni was seen with Nia Vardalos as an unsuccessful singing duo who,
after witnessing a mafia hit, skip town for L.A., where they go way undercover as singers
working the city's dinner theater circuit - as drag queens. In late 2005, Toni Collette
played Cameron Diaz' sister in the adaptation of Jennifer Weiner's novel "In Her Shoes", also
starring Shirley MacLaine. Her next big hit was in the making already. Although starting
a a sleeping hit at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2006, "Little Miss Sunshine"
became a crowd pleaser and eventually the highest sold independent feature by a film
studio. "Sunshine" released cinemas half a year later and became a box office hit, earning
rave reviews for its story and the fantastic ensemble, featuring Toni, Greg Kinnear,
Steve Carrell, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin. Toni, after having finished
the Australian thrill "Like Minds", kept busy and traveled to Tailand shooting a mini-series
for HBO about the Tsunami disaster that hit Thailand in 2005. And back in Australia
again, she and her band "The Finish" would finally go on tour to perform one of Toni's
dreams since her childhood - her own record. "Beautiful Awkward Pictures", a collection
of spiritual and inspirational songs sung and written by Toni herself was well received
by the Australian critics and gave her the chance to tour through Australia. By the
end of 2006, Toni would fully benefit from her hectic schedule - she received two
Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actress and for "Tsunami" and as Best
Actress for "Little Miss Sunshine", the latter would later win two Academy Awards for
its screenplay and Alan Arkin. In July 2007, she also received an Emmy Award nomination
for her performance in "Tsunami: The Aftermath".
After finishing the touring for "Beautiful Awkward Pictures", joining an array of world
stars at the 2007 Live Earth concerts to issue the cause of global warmings, and
the Summer release of "Evening", a high profile ensemble drama co-starring Vanessa
Redgrave and Meryl Streep, Toni announced she would take a break and put her career
on hold for a while as she and husband Dave Galafassi are expecting their first child.
This biography was last modified on July 20, 2007
