BBC has spoken to the real-life people behind the magical story of “Dream Horse” ahead of the film’s UK release. Despite everything that has happened to Jan Vokes since she came up with the idea of raising a race horse on her allotment near Blackwood 20-years-ago, the surprises keep coming. “My father was a coal miner, and I was born and bred in a little village just up the road so to imagine that my life was going to be played out by a Hollywood A-listed actor, it’s just unbelievable,” she said. That actor is Toni Collette and the film is called Dream Horse. It tells the story of Dream Alliance – raised on an allotment and owned by a syndicate of friends paying £10 a week – he went on to win the Welsh Grand National in 2009. The film has been in the planning for about five years with its release delayed because of the pandemic but it was a story perfect for Hollywood. “In the beginning I couldn’t really see a story there but when you sit down and you think about it, it really is a sort of fairytale,” said Jan. “Dream Alliance was working class like us, he came from nowhere.” The complete article can be read over at the BBC News website.

Jan said she was “taken aback” when she first heard Australian actress Toni Collette would be playing her, thinking producers would have chosen a Welsh actress. “I don’t think she got the Welsh accent quite right but she got away with it,” said Jan, who still works seven days a week, including at the local supermarket as depicted in the film. Collette has admitted she found the Welsh accent a “hard nut to crack”, but told ITV’s Lorraine she enjoyed her time filming in Wales. “I just think the Welsh culture is so rich. They sing at the drop of a hat,” she said. “They are so open and inclusive and even though I felt a little intimidated and nervous, I didn’t want to let the country down, I felt very supported. I will go back again and again, it is such a special place.”

Netflix has released the official Stowaway trailer for their upcoming sci-fi survival thriller film, starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson and Oscar nominee Toni Collette. The video features a three-man crew as they embark on a space mission to Mars. However, things don’t go as smoothly as they prepared for when they discover a stranger has accidentally boarded their ship. The film will be available for streaming on April 22, exclusively on Netflix. This project is Collette’s latest collaboration with the streaming service, who have worked together on 2018’s Wanderlust, 2019’s critically acclaimed Unbelievable and last year’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. She is also set to star in Netflix’s upcoming thriller drama series titled Pieces of Her which is based on Karin Slaughter’s novel of the same name. On a mission headed to Mars, an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially grim outcome, a medical researcher emerges as the only dissenting voice against the clinical logic of both her commander and the ship’s biologist. The film is directed by Joe Penna from a screenplay he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Ryan Morrison. Penna and Morrison previously worked together on the filmmaker’s feature directorial debut titled Arctic, which first debuted at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The upcoming Netflix film has some similarities with the Mads Mikkelsen-led film as they both deal with the themes of survival and sacrifice.

Kids love the live-action educational show Odd Squad, and the parents of those kids are in for a treat the week of January 18, when Oscar-nominated actress Toni Collette guest stars on the Emmy-winning PBS Kids program. According to Fatherly, from Fred Rogers Productions, and targeted to viewers ages 6-9, Odd Squad follows young secret agents who aim to save the day using math when odd things occur, and their talents are really put to the test when Toni Collette arrives on the scene as a mysterious new villain called The Sand Queen. Fatherly is pleased to share an exclusive clip that features Collette joyfully chewing the scenery as The Sand Queen cackles madly, unleashes swirls of sand, tries to outrun the heroes in a funhouse, and uses a potato sack to ride down a slide. Collette never seems to play the same role twice, as evidenced by credits spanning from Muriel’s Wedding, The Sixth Sense, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things to About a Boy, Knives Out, and Unbelievable. Her previous family-friendly fare – including The Magic Pudding, The Boxtrolls, and Blinky Bill The Movie – has been of the animated variety. Whatever the reason Collette signed on, we’re excited to see her summon the sand – and the fun – on Odd Squad. You can watch a preview clip below, pictures have been added to the photo gallery.

The great joy of running a fansite/archive is to come across a rare video or appearance that I have never seen, or, even better, never even knew existed. Such is the case for this 1996 video of baby-faced Toni and Ben Mendelsohn promoting their film “Cosi” on the Australian talkshow “Hey Hey It’s Saturday”. If found the video courtesy a wonderful fansite on Mr. Mendelsohn, which you should pay a visit :-) The appearance can be found in the video archive, screencaptures have been added to the photo gallery.

The TV industry’s shiniest night of the year, a.k.a. the Primetime Emmy Awards, looked much different this year, given the never-ending pandemic. The ceremony’s host, Jimmy Kimmel, was literally fired up to emcee the festivities again, this time from the mostly vacant Staples Center in L.A., with winners accepting awards remotely, virtually, and digitally. If you tuned in just for Toni, there wasn’t much to see. She was nominated as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for “Unbelievable” alongside Holland Taylor (Hollywood), Margo Martindale (Mrs. America), Tracey Ullman (Mrs. America) and Jean Smart (Watchmen), but “lost” to Mrs. America’s Uzo Aduba, and wasn’t featured by camera during the nominations. The category segment can be watched below and in the video archive.

Reviews for Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” have been lifted a week ahead of its Netflix premiere. As of today, the surreal horror thriller sits comfortably at a 90% rating at Rotten Tomatoes with praises across the board for its story and acting. Below is a selection of spoiler-free bits from some of the recent reviews. Additionally, new production stills and a press junket interview with Toni Collette have been added to the archives.

The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney (August 27, 2020)
Toni Collette and David Thewlis, both riveting. The tragic grandeur of [Plemons’] performance and the aching burden of Jake’s secrets creep up on you, just like the chilly intimacy, the confronting stillness of the visuals by Żal, the gifted Polish cinematographer who shot Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida and Cold War. I’m Thinking of Ending Things may ultimately withhold as much as it divulges, remaining open to interpretation, but like the thought lodged in Lucy’s head, it lingers.

Parade, Neil Pond (August 27, 2020)
Plemons, so good in so many things—from TV’s Fargo and Breaking Bad to movies like The Irishman and Game Night—has a boyish face that looks like it was made for hiding something else, probably something devious and unsavory, which serves him well here. Buckley, so hugely impressive as a country singer in the movie Wild Rose (2018) and on HBO’s Chernobyl, is about to wow you again in the new season of Fargo. Already acclaimed as one the most promising young actors in her native Ireland, she plays Jake’s girlfriend (unnamed in the novel) as if Lucy is as confused and clueless as we are. And Collette and Thewlis—you can’t take your eyes off them as they create a three-ring circus of master-class crazy, pulling things into a Twilight Zone-ish madhouse swirl of delirium.

Entertainment Weekly, Leah Greenblatt (August 27, 2020)
Buckley and Plemons are left to carry that water for much of I’m Thinking’s 134-minute runtime, and they’re both fantastically game, infusing the movie’s heady concepts with a naturalism that borders on heroic. Their job, they seem to know, is not to be actors so much as ambassadors to this planet: prisms refracting all the strange marvels contained in Kaufman’s great, jittery brain. In moments that portal is genuinely thrilling, but it can be exhausting, too; like being set down and left to wander, without a compass or a map, in the center of someone else’s dream.

The Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips (August 27, 2020)
Kaufman’s latest comes to Netflix Sept. 4. (It’ll play a theatrical run in Chicago starting Friday at the Landmark Century Centre.) Before writing about it, I went back and revisited certain scenes near the end of this very free adaptation of Iain Reid’s novel. I wanted to see if I thought I saw what I thought I saw. You’ll know what I mean if you see it, too.