The Daily Telegraph has the very first picture of Toni in character on the Australian “Mental” set: It’s the new movie that reunites director P.J. Hogan with his old Muriel’s Wedding star and it looks like Mental will be as eccentric as Hogan’s previous classic. Collette went on set dressed in character as Shaz, the working-class nanny. The flick co-stars Liev Schrieber and Anthony La Paglia and is Rebecca Gibney’s first big silver-screen foray. Hogan gave an insight into Collette’s character recently, describing Shaz as “hilarious, outrageous, dangerous, courageous, inspiring, heart-breaking and totally, totally mad”. The film, being shot in Queensland, is due next year.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Liev Schreiber has joined Toni Collette in P.J. Hogan’s new comedy “Mental”, his first local production since Muriel’s Wedding in 1994, which thrust both location and leading lady into the international spotlight. Mental sees Schreiber as a philandering politician who employs Collette, a “crazy hothead hitchhiker”, to nanny his five daughters following the breakdown and hospitalisation of his wife. Anthony LaPaglia, Deborah Mailman and Rebecca Gibney feature alongside Collette and Schreiber for the joint Australian and American production, along with Cloudstreet’s Kerry Fox, Dorian Gray’s Caroline Goodall and Sam Clark from Neighbours.

With yesterday’s series finale of “United States of Tara”, Toni Collette won’t be a weekly regular on television anymore, at least not for now. For all wondering what will be next, Toni has wrapped three films already and another one in the making – so even if “Tara” has ended, Miss Collette’s career will not :-) First in line is the anticipated remake of “Fright Night”, which will premiere in US theaters on August 19, 2011. Then, there are two independent drama comedies with no release date as of now – “Jesus Henry Christ”, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, and “Foster”. This Summer, Toni will also reunite with her “Muriel’s Wedding” director, P.J. Hogan, for the dark Australian comedy “Mental”, in which Toni will play the lead role of Shaz, a nanny hired to look after five sisters after their mother is committed to a mental institution.

News courtesy Inside Film. PJ Hogan’s Mental is set to shoot mid-year in Australia. The specific shoot dates are still to be set with star Toni Collette currently pregnant with her second child. “It’s just a matter of timing,” Universal Pictures International Australasia managing director Mike Baard said. Universal has the UK, Australian and New Zealand rights to the film – a comedy set within the world of Muriel’s Wedding and loosely based on Hogan’s own life. Baard raved about the project at last year’s Screen Producers Association of Australia conference, calling it “one of the most incredible scripts we’ve ever read”.

“Out of probably the 300 scripts I’ve read in the last four years it is the best beyond any doubt and that includes a lot of the international productions that we do,” he said at the SPAA conference. “We got involved very early on with CAA, PJ’s agent, and came on board – we negotiated the deal by putting up a very hefty advance for Australia, New Zealand and the UK which is a primary catalyst in getting the film financed.” Muriel’s Wedding grossed more than $15.76 million in Australia in 1994. Mental is expected to be released in 2012.

According to the Herald Sun, Toni Collette will relocate to Australia from Los Angeles after the birth of her next child to reunite with Muriel’s Wedding director P.J. Hogan after his next project was officially given the go-ahead yesterday. A start date of July 4 for the film Mental was revealed by Sean Gesell, vice-president of Zucker Productions. The movie is about a nanny who changes the lives of the family she works for, reports film writer Vicky Roach. “Mental is The Sound Of Music on acid, and it will reunite me with my favourite actor in the world,” Hogan said. Collette is due to give birth to her second child in autumn.

According to encore, Universal Pictures has announced production of P.J. Hogan’s Mental, to be shot in Australia.

Mental is The Sound of Music on acid, and it will reunite me with my favourite actor in the world, Toni Collette

Hogan told the delegates of the Australian International Movie Convention. Hogan said Mental is a film he’s been building up to for a long time, and it will allow him to express his “whinged life-long love of The Sound of Music” the way Muriel’s Wedding explored his “childhood obsession” with ABBA and My Best Friend’s Wedding used the music of Burt Bacharach. Mental will also reunite Hogan with his producers Lynda Moorhouse and Jerry Zucker. It was written for Collette and is based on “somebody that had a big influence” in Hogan’s life. It will be shot in early 2011, for a Christmas/January 2012 release.