Antonia "Toni" Collette is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on
stage, television and film as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni
Collette & the Finish. She is a recipient of the Emmy and Golden Globe Award for Best
Actress, and has been nominated for the Academy Award and the Tony Award.
Collette's acting career began in the early 1990s with comedic roles in films such as
Spotswood aka The Efficiency Expert and Muriel's Wedding, for which she was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She achieved international recognition as a result of her
Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense and a year later made
her Tony Award-nominated Broadway debut with the leading role in the musical The Wild Party.
In the 2000s, she was noted for her roles in independent features including About a
Boy, for which she won several critics' awards and was nominated for a BAFTA Award, and Little
Miss Sunshine, which earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as her second Golden Globe
and BAFTA nominations. From 2009-2011, she played the lead role in
the television series United States of Tara, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award
and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. Most recently, Collette
headlined the US miniseries Hostages and returned to Broadway in Will Eno's The Realistic Joneses,
for which she earned a Drama Desk Special Award.
Early life
Collette was born in Blacktown, a suburb in Western Sydney, the daughter of Judy, a customer-service
representative, and Bob Collette, a truck driver. She has two younger brothers, Ben
and Christopher. From an early age, Collette showed a talent for acting. She faked appendicitis
when she was 11, and was so convincing that doctors removed her appendix, although tests
showed nothing wrong with it. She attended Blacktown Girls' High School
until the age of 16, and later attended both the Australian Theatre for Young People and
National Institute of Dramatic Art. Her first acting role was onstage in the musical Godspell
in Sydney in her early teens. Acting career
Collette made her television debut in 1990, in a guest appearance on the Seven Network
drama series A Country Practice. Collette has won five Australian Film Institute awards,
including the Australian Best Actress in a Lead Role for Muriel's Wedding in 1994, a
role for which she gained 18 kg in seven weeks. In 1992, she was part of the ensemble
comedy-drama Spotswood aka The Efficiency Expert, which starred Anthony Hopkins and
which also featured Russell Crowe. In 1996, she was part of the ensemble cast of the comedy,
Cosi. She has also received broad acclaim on Broadway,
starring as Queenie in Michael John LaChiusa's musical work, The Wild Party. For this role,
Collette was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
Collette turned down the title role in Bridget Jones's Diary because she was committed to
perform on Broadway at the time. In 1999, she was nominated for an Academy Award for
her role as the mother of a troubled boy in the U.S. film The Sixth Sense, which also
starred Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. 2000s
In 2004 Collette starred with Nia Vardalos and David Duchovny in the musical comedy Connie
and Carla, released by Universal Studios.
Collette's only film in 2005 was In Her Shoes, a comedy-drama about the relationship between
two uncommon sisters and their estranged grandmother, co-starring Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine.
Based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Jennifer Weiner, the production received generally
positive reviews from critics, and became a moderate independent success, earning a
total of US$82.2 million worldwide. Collette was subsequently nominated for a Satellite
Award for Best Actress for her performance of a successful-but-lonely lawyer with low
self-esteem, which Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle noted the focus of the
film: "As usual, Collette's face is a fine-tuned transmitter of her emotions, moment by moment,
and she becomes the locus of audience feeling." In 2006, Collette starred in Little Miss Sunshine,
a comedy-drama-road movie about a family's trip to a children's beauty pageant. The film
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006, and its distribution rights
were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history
of the festival. Released in July 2006, the film received major critical acclaim, resulting
into several accolades such as four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture,
whilst Collette herself earned her second BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for her
portrayal of the family's worn-out matriarch. A box office success, Little Miss Sunshine
went on to gross US$100.5 million worldwide and became one of the most successful independent
films of the mid-2000s. Also in 2006, Collette starred in supporting
roles in the thriller films Like Minds, The Night Listener and The Dead Girl. Although
the latter was released to positive response during its limited North American run, none
of these films fared generally well at the box office, with Robin Williams-featuring
The Night Listener emerging as the biggest-selling production with global gross revenue of US$10.5 million.
In her first television engagement in five years, the HBO-BBC joint mini series Tsunami:
The Aftermath, Collette played an Australian government employee who tries to cope with
the events following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the resulting tsunami in Thailand.
Broadcast to controversial critics, her performance of an aid worker garnered Collette her first
Primetime Emmy nomination and third Golden Globe nomination.
In 2008, Collette accepted the leading role in the Showtime comedy drama series, United
States of Tara. Created by Steven Spielberg and Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody, the show
revolves around a wife and mother of two with dissociative identity disorder, coping with
her seven alternate personalities. Originally planned for a twelve episode season, the series
was picked up for a second and third season, broadcast in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
Collette won both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series
and the Best Actress in a TV Comedy for her performance on the show.
2010s From 2011–2012, Collette took on a slew
of supporting roles in independent films, as well as the 2011 remake of Fright Night.
She also appeared in, among others, Jesus Henry Christ and Mental, which reunited her
with Muriel's Wedding director P.J. Hogan. In 2013, Collette earned critical acclaim
for her work in the acclaimed independent films The Way Way Back as Pam, opposite Steve
Carell and Sam Rockwell, and Enough Said as Sarah, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James
Gandolfini in one of his final film roles. In particular, for her work in Way, Way Back,
Collette received several glowing notices. Andrew O'Heir of Salon Magazine praised her
"brilliant, understated performance"; Peter Travers of Rolling Stone dubbed her work "stellar";
James Berardinelli described Collette as a "chameleon" and said that she gives a performance
far and above what the role requires; and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote
that through Collette's performance, "Pam ... comes alive."
In the fall of 2013, Collette headlined the CBS event drama Hostages to solid reviews
albeit weak ratings. RedEye described her performance as "fascinating", Newsday as "superb",
and USA Today as "nuanced" and "grounded." The series aired fifteen episodes and, due
to a combination of low ratings and a closed narrative, will not return for a second cycle.
Collette headlined the Joanne Woodward-produced Lucky Them which debuted at the 2013 Toronto
International Film Festival and was released theatrically on May 30, 2014. The film earned
strong reviews, with Collette receiving the bulk of the praise. The Hollywood Reporter
wrote that the movie was "centered by smart, soulful work by the wonderful Toni Collette"
and that she plays her character, Ellie, "with warmth, realness and emotional transparency
that make you stay with her even when she’s pushing people away." Variety said that "it's
Collette's show, and the actress fully conveys the brittle, hard-edged cynicism of someone
who’s been around the block a few times, jaded by years of exposure to the empty promises
and broken dreams that proliferate on her chosen beat ... it generates a surprising
degree of suspense as it barrels toward its final revelations, culminating in an unexpectedly
emotional payoff played with piercing delicacy by Collette." The film played the 2014 Tribeca
Film Festival, where Joe Bendel of Libertas Film Magazine ranked Collette's leading performance
as the fourth-best of the festival. Upon release, Mike D'Angelo of The Dissolve wrote that "Toni
Collette is capable of anything" and other raves came from the Village Voice, the New
York Post and the Los Angeles Times. Lucky Them received a mixed response from publications
such as the New York Times, Slant and PopMatters, though Collette's performance was consistently
praised despite varied reactions to the movie. Overall, the film was designated "fresh" by
Rotten Tomatoes with 80 percent of critics positively reviewing it, and it received a
weighted score of 65 by Metacritic, equating to "generally positive reviews."
After a 14-year absence, Collette returned to Broadway in the spring of 2014, starring
in Will Eno's play The Realistic Joneses. She co-starred with Michael C. Hall, Tracy
Letts and Marisa Tomei in the production examining a couple who projects their insecurities and
fears onto their next-door neighbors of the same last name. The play opened on April 6
to strong reviews, with Collette and the entire cast earning top notices. A rave from the
New York Times included that "Ms. Collette exudes a touching, exasperated dignity as
Jennifer." Variety called her work "terribly funny," while the Hollywood Reporter claimed
that "Collette, whose naturalness can cut through even the very deliberate theatrical
artifice of Eno's dialogue and scene construction, anchors the play with her somber restraint
and deadpan delivery." The New York Post, more critical of the play, highlighted Collette's
performance: "Collette does some heavy lifting to fill in Eno’s blanks. You can read deep
sadness in the wide planes of her expressive face, in her lost, unfocused eyes." Other
strong reviews for the play and her performance came from USA Today, Newsday, the Chicago
Tribune and the Economist. Collette won a Drama Desk Special Award along with her co-stars
for Best Ensemble Performance. Collette's 2014 roles include the negatively-received
tragi-comedy A Long Way Down, with Pierce Brosnan and Aaron Paul; the Melissa McCarthy
vehicle Tammy; Hector and the Search for Happiness opposite Simon Pegg; the drama Miss You Already
opposite Rachel Weisz; and the drug drama Glassland with Will Poulter.
Music career In October 2006, she began touring Australia
to promote her first vocal album Beautiful Awkward Pictures, released on Hoola Hoop Records
under the name Toni Collette and the Finish, a band for which her husband plays drums.
Collette appeared on the Australian television show Cool Aid and performed the song "Look
Up" from the album. In July 2007, Collette and the Finish were a headlining act at the
Sydney show of Live Earth. She sang a cover of T-Rex's "Children of the Revolution" with
The Finish. Personal life
Collette married musician Dave Galafassi on 11 January 2003. The couple has a daughter,
Sage Florence, born on 9 January 2008, and a son, Arlo Robert, born on 22 April 2011.
She is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. She urged former Prime Minister John Howard
to end the Australian sheep farming practice of mulesing, which many animal rights activists
consider cruel. She later revised her position after doing her own research of the Australian
wool industry. Filmography
Film Television
Awards and nominations Discography
Beautiful Awkward Pictures – Toni Collette & The Finish
References
External links Toni Collette at the Internet Movie Database
Collette & Sage Photo Toni Collette at Emmys.com