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8 months ago
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Actress Toni Collette discussed her journey from a working-class neighborhood in northwest Sydney to Hollywood star in a masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent incubator event on Friday.
The Oscar-nominated Muriel’s Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, Knives Out and Unbelievable acting star said she had been drawn to performance from an early age, firstly through musical theatre and tap dance.
“My father said I came out of the womb with jazz hands towards light,” she joked.
Looking back on her early career, Collette recalled how she had dropped out of Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art NIDA after being offered the part of Sonya in a 1992 stage production of Uncle Vanya by Neil Armfield.
This in turn led to her first starring big screen role in P.J. Hogan’s comedy-drama Muriel’s Wedding, after she connected with her agent over her dilemma of whether to stay at school or take the part.
“When you go to drama school, they make you feel like it’s the be all and end all, but you’re going there because eventually you want to work. They made it such a difficult decision,” she recalled.
“I spoke to my agent. I was like, ‘I don’t wanna leave and then never work again.’ And she said, ‘Well, there’s this film. It’s not entirely funded yet, but I really think it’s right for you.”
A year later, the agent put Collette forward for the role of the titular Abba-loving, social misfit in Muriel’s Wedding.
“She only sent one person. She had complete faith in me. I met P.J. Hogan on the very first day of auditions and then he went all around Australia for three months while I waited and then I finally got a call,” said Collette, describing her casting in the film as “preordained’ and “destiny”.
Talking about how she prepared for that role, Collette revealed how she uses a quasi-meditative technique to get into character.
“Acting in general is quite meditative for me. I don’t know how I do it because I don’t see anything, I don’t see the camera. I’m fully in this world and just become very present,” she said. “I meditate now and see how they’re very similar exercises.”
Collette said this immersive technique has its downside, describing how she had found it hard to shake the emotions connected to her role in the 2015 drama Miss You Already, in which she stars as a women diagnosed with cancer, opposite Drew Barrymore as her character’s best friend.
“It’s exhausting being emotional… sometimes when I’ve had a few jobs on the trot where it’s very intensely emotional, I’ll go, ‘I’ve got to do a comedy now please’. I just make a decision to work on something simply because I don’t have to emote,” she said.
“On Miss You Already… I realised two years after finishing the film that I was still thinking about it and getting choked up by it. I was thinking, ‘This is not right.’ The body actually doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. When I’m working, I can’t pretend, I have to feel things too.”
“Once I realised my body was unsure what was real, I had to figure out ways of how to let stuff go and tell myself, ‘No, that’s not mine. I don’t have to carry it around.’ It’s been an interesting process.”
Collette revealed she was originally cast in film in the role of the friend played by Barrymore.
“We kept getting people in and they would fall out… I was working on Broadway and a friend of mine came to a show and afterwards I was talking to her about it. She said, ‘Why don’t you play that part, you’re like that part’. Then it all fell into place,” she said.
Collette said she and Barrymore had “fallen in love” during the shoot in the UK.
“We were thick as thieves throughout the entire process,” she said. “I think we both knew exactly what we were doing. The minute we met, we were tight. We had so much fun together in London, neither of us lived there, we got up to a lot of mischief, we laughed a lot and probably ate too much.
“I will forever love Drew for sharing that experience of being so open. She just came in completely open and vulnerable to this really beautiful friendship.”
Miss You Already was also significant for Collette’s career because it saw her work with director Catherine Hardwicke for the first time as well as producer Christopher Simon, with whom she is now working on a number of projects as an actor, producer and soon director.
She is currently gearing up for the shoot of Hardwicke’s upcoming comedy drama A French Pursuit, a remake of the 2020 French comedy-hit My Donkey, My Lover & I (Antoinette Dans Les Cévennes), starring Laura Calamy.
Collette will both star and produce under the banner of her company Vocab Films with Simon’s New Sparta Productions. It is Collette’s third production with Hardwicke and Simon after Miss You Already and Mafia Mamma.
“Chris is my producing partner and I’m learning so much… I wanted to know how to put films together from the first scene not just coming in as an actor, being an actor is actually a very small part of the filmmaking process,” said Collette.
She now has two directorial projects on the go including the previously announced feature Writers and Lovers, based on the eponymous novel by Lily King.
Collette will direct and takes co-writer credits on the screenplay with King as well as Nick Payne, with whom the actress previously worked with on the TV series Wunderlust.
After Doha, Collette will be heading to France to work on pre-production for A French Pursuit.
“We’re going to do a location scout; meet the production team we’re working with in France, the casting people and some actors. It’s just stuff you don’t get to do as an actor and it’s incredibly satisfying” she said.
“I think it’s important in life to keep learning so that you don’t become complacent. And I’m so grateful that I can do that within this filmmaking world that I that has given so much to me.”
