Change of Art
Toni Collette must be a glutton for punishment. As one of the most respected and in-demand actors around (and an Oscar-nominee, in 1999, for The Sixth Sense she hasn?t been afraid to do what it takes in the name of art.
There was the well-documented packing on of pounds for her watershed role in Muriel’s Wedding and in 2005’s underrated In Her Shoes; her empathetic portrayal of “Miss Granola Suicide”, Fiona, in 2002’s About a Boy; the garish drag queen-esque make-up she was required to slap on for the ultimately underwhelming Connie & Carla in 2004; and most recently, her turn as the dowdy, but warm-hearted mum, Sheryl, in the soon-to-be released (and hit of this year’s esteemed Sundance Film Festival) Little Miss Sunshine. But now, as the 33-year-old readily admits, she’s really setting herself up for a fall. Toni Collette is about to release an album – of music. It’s almost enough to make you run screaming from your stereo. “I can understand that because I’ve watched other actors make music and it’s embarrassing,” agrees Collette, when I meet up with her. “But I can’t go out there and be didactic, and say, I’m not like (those people). For me, I really am doing what feels natural. I’m not trying to be anything but myself and this has not been some contrived, conceited effort. “In fact, it wasn’t really an effort; it was just a total pleasure. And people will either get it or they won’t, and that’s fine because that’s what the world is like.”
Collette needn’t worry, because her debut effort, Beautiful Awkward Pictures (recorded with her band, The Finish) is a beautiful surprise. With its lush, melancholy melodies that evoke whispers of Jeff Buckley, Nick Cave, Radiohead and kd lang, it’s a fantastic first outing. But the album is not something Collette decided to release on a whim. “There have been moments of recording demos and being encouraged by certain people to record at certain times and it never felt appropriate because of what I was already doing,” she says. “But it’s so funny because, when I’m acting, a lot of the time to get myself into a mood, I’ll listen to music. For me, the two have always been interwoven. Then again, acting is the vision of someone else,” she says, with a booming laugh, which she unleashes regularly. “This is my vision!” And Collette is under no illusions as to the credibility risk of an actor making a foray into music. Let’s face it: for every Kylie Minogue, there’s a Russell Crowe. “I find society so frustrating that things have to be so narrow and boxed in, and I think it’s just another way of expressing something. It’s another way of getting your inside world out and communicating something. Who knows? I might be 50 and start painting ceramic pots! I don’t know how it will evolve but, right now, this is what’s happening and I’m really enjoying it and it is fulfilling and satisfying and all of those great things. Yeah, I don’t know…” she says, trailing off again into a fit of laughter. “Stuff them all!”
Music has always been a big part of Collette’s life. She remembers sitting in her parents’ lounge room rifling through Beatles and Dr Hook albums as a kid. And, as she grew older, while many of her schoolmates were listening to Duran Duran, she was obsessed with 1960s guitar pop. “I listened to a lot of Motown – The Supremes. Both my younger brothers played soccer and one of the soccer dads used to have all these compilations of ’60s music and I would listen to that more than anything that was contemporary at the time. But I did get sucked in to the Pseudo Echo thing. I liked Brian Canham’s teeth.” Funnily enough, it was a Whitney Houston song that convinced Collette she had talent as a singer. At the age of 13, when trying out for her school musical, Collette decided to sing the Houston classic “Saving All My Love for You”. “I was a big belter,” she laughs. “And that’s what they need in musical theatre. I remember I was in this big hall and there was a table with a few people watching, and I just felt that they were being drawn in – or that there was some kind of magnetic thing happening… All the other kids outside had their ears glued to the door, and they were like, ‘Oh my god.’ I guess that’s when I realised it sounded good to other people.”
Collette credits her husband, musician Dave Galafassi, with giving her the confidence to nurture her own songs and get them out into the world. “He definitely propelled it into action,” she says, smiling. “He’s known I’ve been writing music ever since we’ve been together. And he’s the person I kind of, with trepidation, whisper new songs to. So he’s been a big part of it since the beginning. I bounce everything off him and vice versa.” Collette says she wrote her first song during, as she puts it, her “goddamn 20s”, at the height of Muriel’s Wedding hysteria, and then surprises me by admitting that she didn’t overly enjoy that period of her life. For her, it was rife with insecurities and doubts, and she’s glad it’s over. “Everything in your 20s is… (adopts hysterical voice) ‘Did he look at me or did he look at her? Should I ring him? Or should I text him?’ Oh, hang on, we didn’t have texting then – I’d say things are just easier now.” Collette says that she struggled to cope with the fame that was thrust upon her in her 20s. “Some of it was so confronting and weird, being known to people you don’t know. In the same breath, I don’t have it as bad as a million other actors or other famous people.”
Again, Collette says that it is the support of Galafassi (whom she first met at a friend’s barbecue, and married in 2003 in a Buddhist ceremony) that has contributed to making her feel more comfortable with herself. “I don’t know how to encapsulate (what he’s brought to my life). I think he’s enhanced everything positive. There’s just an ease to life that I didn’t have before. I think it comes with growing, and also probably growing with Dave. Yeah, I sometimes feel sorry for the person I was – I was so hard on myself. And who needs that?” Still, it’s difficult to imagine the gregarious, affable person sitting in front of me having been at odds with her own sense of self. “I think, personally, I’ve changed a lot. I can laugh more at who I was and what I’ve been through and not take myself so seriously. I can take things easier and be more accepting.” Part of that change can be put down to the decision to base herself in Australia when a film doesn’t require her to shoot overseas. “I love living here. I make most sense here. I have tried living in other places and it doesn’t work. So it’s best to travel and work, and go, ‘Wahoo, I’m on the other side of the world,’ and when I come home, I appreciate home being what it is and I feel settled.”
Collette thinks of herself as “the luckiest person in the world”, getting her pick of to-die-for movie roles. “When I choose to work on something, it kind of bypasses my head and does go straight to my heart. The majority of the work that I’ve done, it’s because I relate to the material and I feel compelled to help it come to life because I love it as much as I think the audience would love it. This is the frustrating thing with film, with music, with any kind of outpouring of that nature,” she sighs. “People want to respond wholeheartedly and they really do that when there’s a heart in something, and yet so much money and so much wasted film is made into a crock of s**t.” Collette says her most profound reaction to a performance was when, as an 18-year-old NIDA student, she first saw Geoffrey Rush on stage in a Neil Armfield production of Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. “I loved it so much that I wrote a letter to the two of them just talking about how great it was,” she remembers.
“When people talked about theatre or music, or a performance being spiritual, I thought I never understood what that meant, but that night, I absolutely got it and it was the most profound experience for me.” Not long after, Armfield offered her a part in his production of Uncle Vanya, which also starred Rush. “I was petrified the whole time,” she says. “I couldn’t even talk to them.” She had a similar reaction when she met Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine for the first time, but this was nothing compared to meeting her rugby-league heroes. “I remember being 10 or 11, and I had relatives that worked for Balmain Rugby League Club and I loved Steve Roach and Wayne Pearce – and Benny Elias and those guys – and they came out after a game and talked to me once. I actually cried,” she remembers, that laughter exploding once more. Now that love of ball sports has extended to soccer. However, watching the Italy/Australia match during the recent World Cup on Norton Street in the heart of Sydney’s Italian community nearly put paid to Collette’s future plans of drinking vino and kicking back in Tuscany. “I’ll never watch another soccer game again, because it was just too stressful and heartbreaking. I was gutted. It was devastating. I walked out of there going, screw you all, I’m not eating Italian food again. The love affair with Italy is over. And why does the goalie pluck his f***ing eyebrows anyway?”
Toni Collette & The Finish’s first single, “Beautiful Awkward Pictures” (Hoola Hoop Records) is released September 2.
They’ll also appear at Sydney’s Homebake festival on December 2. Visit www.homebake.com.au for ticket pricing and program details.
