Little Miss Rock Star
Not content with starring in one of the year’s most acclaimed movies, Toni Collette adds singer-songwriter to her CV with the release of her debut album, writes Rob O’Brien.
It’s not that she’s struggling to pay her mortgage, or turning her back on her illustrious career in film, but Toni Collette is about to go where all too many big name actors have gone before and launch herself into the music world along with her band The Finish. Is she ready for the backlash? it’s inevitable,” admits Collette right from the get-go. “There aro so many actors who give it a crack. And they’re hideous” But before you file her away under 30-00d-Foot-of-Dogstar, consider the soulful, lo-fi inthe sounds of her debut album Beautiful Awkward Pictures. Collette composed every track, ranging from the rocking ‘Look Out” to the wistful “Black and Blue” and “Cowboy Games”, and delivers them in a voice that’s strong and sultry. Music fans will be surprised to hear themselves say: You’re not terrible, Muriel. “Once people hear the music it will speak for itself,’ Collette says, palpably excited about the album despite the jet-lag of having just flown into Sydney from the US. It comes down to the intentions behind why you’re doing it and for me it’s a pure love of music. I’m not doing it for anyone else and I’m not trying to please anyone else.’ Collette’s supporters may well be aware of the power of her pipes, whether because of her performance as the chanteuse masquerading as a drag queen in Connie and Carla, or her Tony Award-nominated role in the Broadway musical The Wild Party. “I’ve always been a singer. Everyone thought I’d be a singer – when I was young I used to do musicals, talent quests and horrible things like that,” she recalls. “And then I found acting.” To say that the album has been several years in the making is an understatement: the oldest track is one she penned 12 years ago. “IVe been writing sporadically whilst I’ve been traveling around. It’s been a very easy, natural end organic process.”
In early 2005 Collette assembled a band consisting of her drummer husband Dave Galafassi [from Geibison], You Am I’s keyboardist David Lane, Glen Richards of Augie March and bass player David Farley. With producer Willy Zygier and engineer Paul McKercher they got to work at Collette and Galafassi’s home studio. We rehearsed for a week, recorded for two weeks and got much more done than we thought we would. We lived with it for a couple of weeks. reconvened at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne and did another week of overdubs and vocals and that fruition. “This album would have taken longer had I not been married to Dave. Making music and recording it is a very real part of his life”, she says. “Having his encouragement and wisdom been great”. She is In Australia for only three weeks this time around, before jetting back to Hollywood to shoot two new films: Evening, based on Susan minotS novel, with Vanessa Redgrave, and an untitled by American Beauty and Six Feet Under scribe Alan Ball. In Adelaide in December she begins shooting the fabulously titled Hey, Hey, its Esther Blueburger alongside fellow Oscar nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes. The film will bring to an impressive 33 the number of movies in which she has acted – one for every year she’s been alive. Sandwiched between shoots is a November tour, a month after her album launch. Isn’t it all a little chaotic? “As an actor I’m not chained to a desk, there’s flexibility involved,” she says.”It’s more a matter of when everyone else is available, because they’ve got their own commitments as well.”
Collette has just returned from doing media rounds in the US promoting her new film “Little Miss Sunshine”, in which she plays the functional mother of the otherwise thoroughly dysfunctional Hoover family. The film’s sublime cast includes Steve Carrell, Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin. It does have the sense of being original, she says of the film. It moves between being really funny and really quite poignant. Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the film follows the Albuquerque-based Hoovers on a read trip to California where Collette’s character’s daughter is a finalist in the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant. “In anyone else’s hands it could have become some broadstroke, wacky, zany American movie family, but it’s universally been loved for its depth and it has such a good heart,” says Collette. This film was an all-round winner, which is funny because the movie’s about winners and losers and not being either of them. It’s about living your own life -an autonomous, authentic life, where you don’t bow down to other people’s expectations, or try and force them to live anyone else’s dreams, and just be yourself.”
Come December, you could be listening to Toni Collette’s music on the radio on your way to watching her in Little Miss Sunshine, than catch her live at Sydney’s Homebake Festival. It Is certainly Homebake that is playing on Collette’s mind right now. As one of the punters at the annual festival lest year she got a fairly good idea of what it’s like. She may have shared the big screen with the likes of Bruce Willis and Hugh Grant, but the thought of commanding the crowd at Homebake gives her pause. “Last year I stood and watched the Finn Brothers and I wish I didn’t,” she laughs. “It’s sightly daunting.”
