“Greetings!” says Toni Collette. “How are you?” Not bad, I say, all things considered – it’s 6am London time, 5pm in Sydney where Collette is based. How are you?
“Ah, I’m all right.” She seems a touch weary. “End of a day, which started out rainy, but now it’s sunshine and lollipops, so all is well.”
You should try London.
“How is it?”
You know: below freezing and disgusting.
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“Ha. How long, on average, do you think winter goes on for there? Half a year?”
Based on decades of watching her in films and on TV, in Muriel’s Wedding and Velvet Goldmine, About a Boy and Little Miss Sunshine, in United States of Tara and Wanderlust, Pieces of Her and The Staircase, I really like Toni Collette. She’s one of those stars about whom a sense of decency, of normality, prevails.
Maybe it’s because she broke through, in her early twenties, as Muriel Heslop in Muriel’s Wedding, the achingly sweet 1994 indie comedy drama about an unpopular, Abba-obsessed social outlier trapped in a small town with her high-school bullies — maybe those of us introduced to her in that role conflate Collette with Muriel, that charming, witty, original underdog from Porpoise Spit. Or maybe it’s just that Toni Collette, now 50, is obviously good at what she does. It’s easy to like the truly talented, to assume they must be wonderful people, because they make us happy with what they do. Also, to have talent visited upon someone awful would be unjust, so we assume it can’t be.
And Collette is pretty great, no? One of those actors who, when you see her in a trailer, or her name attached to a forthcoming project, you think, I’ll watch that, then… Sublime as Muriel, gently heartbreaking as a suicidal, idealistic mother in About a Boy, dangerous in Pieces of Her, convincing, nuanced and just incredibly watchable, really, in all of it (and there is a lot: more than 70 films, plus 15 or so TV shows, according to Wikipedia; barely a year among the 30 that she’s been working comes without the release of at least two major projects, though generally more).
“That’s very kind of you to say that. Thank you. That’s very, very nice of you. That’s amazing.” She seems so charmed by my praise, I dish out some more.
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I’ve even tried to watch Hereditary (2018’s deeply creepy thriller in which Collette stars as a mother grieving her daughter, who died in gruesome circumstances) because of you — but I’m too much of a wuss for horror, so I couldn’t.
“I don’t know how anyone does. I’ve only seen it a couple of times, and I can only watch it because I’m in it. I cannot watch a scary movie. I cannot. I don’t know how people do it. It’s like a diet; what you eat. What you put in your mind — it’s in there. I don’t want that shit in there.”
● Book review: The Power by Naomi Alderman
We’re talking ahead of Amazon’s (superb) adaptation of The Power by Naomi Alderman, 2016’s bestseller, a feminist allegory. Collette plays Margot Cleary-Lopez, mayor of Seattle, a politician attempting to operate in a world suddenly, totally upended by (spoiler alert) women developing the ability to deliver powerful, even fatal, electric shocks through their hands.
I loved the book, so I’m relieved the adaptation is so good. I thank Collette for not messing it up.
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“Total pleasure. It was all up to me.” (She’s being ironic. The Power is an ensemble piece — everybody needed to be good in it, which they are. Special mention to Ria Zmitrowicz’s extraordinary Roxy Monke.) “I feel like some weird appendage; I came to it very late. They’d been working on it for a couple of years. Covid did its thing on it; it expanded and changed and grew. There was a bit of juggling with the cast. [Leslie Mann was originally due to play Margot. It’s not clear why she dropped out — Covid-enforced schedule clashes are assumed to be involved.] Then I kind of slipped in at the last minute and shot the entire season in five weeks, which was a complete headf***.”
Why?
“To do that much work in such a short period of time? It was just not ideal. I think mostly when you’re shooting a series, you have other people doing their work and you get breaks where you can focus on your next scene. But it was just so constant. There was no break, no let-up. But maybe that’s good — that’s how Margot would have been.”
What does Collette think of the state of the world depicted in The Power, I ask. Everything’s changed; established societal structures are on their heads; the rules are unclear, so’s the morality… Could we call it an apocalypse?
“No, not at all. I think it’s an evolution. I find it hopeful.”
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TONI COLLETTE WAS BORN TONI COLLETT in Glebe, a suburb of Sydney, in 1972. She’s the eldest child of truck driver Bob Collett (originally Collette — Bob had removed the final “e”, which his daughter would restore because it made for a better stage name), and customer services rep Judy. She has two younger brothers.
Not a family of performers then?
“No, no. Not at all. But I did a school musical… You know what? I didn’t do a school musical. I missed out on it. It was Year 7 [UK Year 8] and I wasn’t aware of how things worked; I wasn’t aware that they were having auditions for Pippin. And I was so desperately sad that I missed out on it. I went to every performance, so I kind of had this thing to grope at the following year, something I really wanted to go for. I did Godspell when I was in Year 8 at school, and that was it. It just made me feel incredibly alive. Like discovering some religion that really speaks to your soul. On a good day, it still does that.”
Was there a moment she realised she was good? That she could make this her career?
“Oh God, no. Not as a kid. I’d done one film at 17, my first film, Spotswood, and then I did a couple of plays at the Sydney Theatre Company. Then I went to NIDA [Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art — Cate Blanchett, Mel Gibson and Baz Luhrmann all trained there] for a year and a bit. So I dropped out of school, then I dropped out of drama school. My parents were not feeling hopeful. I was very good at school. I had great grades; I enjoyed it. I don’t come from a great academic family: I think I was their hope. But acting was like a lightning bolt.”
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Halfway through her second year at NIDA Collette was cast as Sonya, opposite Geoffrey Rush, in Uncle Vanya. She left education completely, aged just 18.
Which was bold, I say.
“I think I was much braver when I was younger. I think the more you learn about the world, the more cautious you become, because you know you can make mistakes. All the pitfalls become glaringly obvious. People start to get safer. I actively try to go against that because, as far as we know, we’re only here once. Why not f***ing go for it on all fronts, in every area of life?”
This approach appears to have paid off for Collette. I ask if she was buoyed by an understanding of her own talent and she says, “Look, I don’t find it difficult.” She adds that she’s never really felt work might be drying up. “Oh, I think there was a period in there where I struggled a little bit… But it was admittedly — without sounding in any way up myself — rather short-lived. It was around the birth of my second child. I was preoccupied anyway.” Collette is referring to her daughter, Sage, who is now 5. She also has a son, Arlo, 11, both with the musician Dave Galafassi. They separated late last year following 19 years of marriage.
If work has been “a fairly even ride”, she’s experienced periods of emotional rockiness, most notably in the years after Muriel’s Wedding when she developed bulimia (possibly as a consequence of having put on weight for the role of Muriel). There were panic attacks too.
Is that sort of thing a pretty inevitable response to the sudden onslaught of fame?
“No, I think everyone’s different. That [the bulimia] certainly wasn’t any way to deal with it, which I learnt very quickly. But I do think the shift, the change that happens when you’re not entirely ready for it, can be confronting and challenging. And maybe that’s what you’re saying? Because this industry does find people and celebrate them rather quickly. But life is a learning process and I don’t regret anything. I think you learn the most from the shittiest times in your life. I think it’s the best fertiliser. And if you can look at life that way… I seriously have no regrets, except maybe saying no to Qantas. I probably shouldn’t even say this.”
You definitely should.
“After Muriel’s Wedding, Qantas wanted me to be the face of Qantas. They were going to give me a substantial amount of money and free flights for me and my immediate family for the rest of my life. That is my one regret, because I said no. No one was endorsing things at the time. That wasn’t something people did. It was the early Nineties. I remember saying, ‘No, I want to be a serious actress. I want to be taken seriously. I don’t want to do that.’ And look at the world now. People are selling shampoo.”
It’s hard to imagine Collette as the “face” of anything, actually, because hers is a really changeable one — I’m not sure it’s static or predictable enough to represent a brand.
She’s one of those actors who works through physical transformation as well as emotional. If Muriel was gauche, ungainly, physically unsure, Mandy Slade in 1998’s Velvet Goldmine was cheekboned to hell and back, dazzlingly sleek; Wanderlust’s Joy Richards, a vision of re-emergent sexiness for the BBC, quite distinct from Pieces of Her’s Laura Oliver, who wielded a sort of ruthlessly competent, literally killer femininity. Collette’s one of those who makes you go, “Bloody hell! Is that really her?” at least once, every third film.
On top of which, she’s shaved her head.
“Five or six times. It feels really good.”
Explain.
“Like a fresh start. A clean slate. And it’s very weird to get the compliment, ‘You’ve got a great-shaped head,’ but apparently I do. I’ve done it a couple of times for jobs. I did it for a friend’s fashion show. The first time I did it, I was in Mexico and I’d had a lot of tequila. It was my 25th birthday. I did it the day after meeting my ex-husband. I think I was testing him, like, ‘Do you like me now?’ ”
Ah, that ex. I’d wondered if he’d be raised, how Collette feels about him, about the end of their marriage; what stage of divorce she currently inhabits. Inevitably, given Collette’s profile, it’s all been more public than, I presume, is comfortable. At the end of last year, pictures emerged of Galafassi on the beach kissing a chiropractor called Sharon Egan. The press coverage and social media speculation about those pictures necessitated an edit of Collette’s just released Instagram announcement of the divorce, which had read, “It is with grace and gratitude that we announce we are divorcing,” but now reads, “After a substantial period of separation, it is with grace and gratitude that we announce we are divorcing.” How exhausting to have to manage your public perception, along with the emotional fallout of divorce. How unpleasant to have to talk to the press while still trying to work out which way is up, in your reconfigured circumstances.
Of course, I ask her about it. We talk about meditation, about how much it helps her. I ask if it’s helping her at the moment, because she’s having a shaky old time with her relationship.
“I’m not having a shaky time at all,” she says. “That’s a big assumption.”
I’m sorry, I say. So you’re doing OK?
“I’m doing very well. Thank you for your concern. It’s not something I really want to talk about publicly, but I am fine. More than fine.”
We move on to the considerably less controversial issue of sex scenes. I understand Collette has been offered the services of newly fashionable intimacy coaches while filming sex scenes — these are individuals charged with helping actors to feel entirely comfortable with their circumstances — but has turned them down. “I think it’s only been a couple of times where they’ve been brought in, and I have very much trusted and felt at ease with the people I was working with. It just felt like those people who were brought in to make me feel more at ease were actually making me feel more anxious. They weren’t helping, so I asked them to leave.”
Might they have been welcome earlier in her career, when Collette was younger and perhaps more vulnerable?
“It depends. Look, every job is different. Every single job is different. Because it’s a bunch of new people it’s a new energy; everyone brings their whole life with them, and it’s all thrown in the pot. You never know what you’re going to get and it’s a miracle that a film ever comes together, let alone thrives. I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve only worked with a few arseholes over the several decades that I’ve managed to keep this boat afloat.”
Regarding the arseholes: care to name them?
“You’re hilarious. You’re so British. You’re such a British journalist.”
So that’s a no? You don’t care to name them?
“No! But, actually, bless you for trying.”
She tells me she loves Ricky Gervais, loves his show After Life, loves how he’s taking on cancel culture head on. “God, when [cancel culture] was first mentioned to me, a while back now, I didn’t quite understand what people meant… I mean, we don’t want people who are offensive swinging their stuff around with freedom. But people who are authentic and have something within them to share in life, feeling stifled? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”
And she loves music and makes her own. She also rather loved lockdown, worked with the writer Nick Payne, who wrote Wanderlust, on an adaptation of Lily King’s novel Writers & Lovers. “I’m meant to be directing it this year. I’m really excited.”
She’s not bothered by awards — “No!” — but she does appreciate film-star money. “Who wouldn’t? I grew up in a fully working-class family. My dad worked three, four jobs at a time through some phases. I know what it’s like not to have much.”
And she tells me she’s never really adjusted to being famous.
“I’m always shocked when someone recognises me. I’m getting a bit more used to it, because it is quite frequent, but it just seems like it’s happening to someone else half the time.”
What do people say to her, typically? “You’re terrible, Muriel!”?
“That hasn’t happened for a while. People just want to have photos and they just want to say, ‘I love you.’ That’s not a bad thing. Depending on how tired I am or if I’m with my kids or what I’m doing… My son actually said to me — he must have said this when he was about 8 — ‘Mum, you realise if you take a photo with someone, that can make their day, maybe even their week or year. It doesn’t take anything for you to do that. You’ve got to do it.’ And I’d be like, ‘No, I’m with my kids. I’m sorry.’ Now, I’m just like, ‘F*** it. Yeah, sure. Why not?’ ”
And with that, we say goodbye. I leave Toni Collette, film star, face of Qantas manqué, to her day of sunshine and lollipops.
The Power is available on Prime Video from March 31
