Toni Collette biography

Synopsis

Early Life and Career

Actress Toni Collette was born Antonia Collette in Sydney, Australia, on November 1, 1972. Collette grew up as the eldest of three children in the suburbs of Sydney; her father was a truck driver and her mother worked as a customer service representative. Not long after getting her first taste of performing in a high school production of Godspell, Collette was picked from among thousands of other prospective candidates to play the lead role in an Australian bicentennial musical. Encouraged by that early success, she left school at age 16 and began working with the Australian Theatre for Young People.

In the late 1980s, Collette attended Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art, but left after a year and a half when she landed a role in a Sydney stage production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. She made her feature film debut in the little-seen 1992 comedy The Efficiency Expert, starring Anthony Hopkins and featuring Russell Crowe.

Career Highlights

Collette was appearing in a play called Summer of the Aliens in June 1993, when she auditioned for the role that would prove to be her breakthrough: the gawky, ABBA-worshiping heroine of P.J. Hogan's black comedy Muriel's Wedding (1994). Collette gained 42 pounds for the role and earned worldwide acclaim, including an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress. A number of big-screen roles followed, most notably a supporting turn as the impressionable Harriet Smith in a 1996 film version of Jane Austen's novel Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Collette also appeared in Cosi (1996), Diana and Me (1997), and Velvet Goldmine (1998). Collette also received two more Australian Film Institute Awards, for Best Supporting Actress in Lilian's Story (1996) and The Boys (1998).

In 1999, Collette co-starred with Bruce Willis in the blockbuster suspense film The Sixth Sense, as the concerned mother of a troubled young boy (played by Haley Joel Osment). For her understated performance, and admirable American accent, Collette earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, matching the accomplishment of her fellow Aussie actress and co-star of Muriel's Wedding and Cosi, Rachel Griffiths (who was nominated in 1998 for Hilary and Jackie). In 2000, Collette made her debut on Broadway, scoring a Tony nomination for her starring turn as a 1920s vaudeville performer in The Wild Party, also starring veteran musical theater actor Mandy Patinkin and Eartha Kitt. She also appeared in Shaft, director John Singleton's remake of the like-named 1971 private eye film, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christian Bale.