Toni Collette Best Kept Secret until Recently
Toni Collette Best Kept Secret until Recently by Roxanne McDonald
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From Muriel’s Wedding to an Oscar nomination for The Sixth Sense, actress Toni Collette finally gets some much-deserved recognition. |
In America, anyway. In Australia she has been appreciated for years. The brilliant actress with a versatility that rivals Streep’s was nominated for her role as in The Sixth Sense, but Toni Collete has made a solid name for herself long before this March of 2007.
With three films in her portfolio, in 1994 she made herself the butt of laughs (respectable laughs, but raucous laughs, nonetheless) as the quirky outcast who does a rites of passage turnabout in Muriel’s Wedding—for which she won the Australian Film Institute’s esteemed award of Australian Best Actress in a Lead Role.
With equally talented Rachel Griffiths, Collette played a poignant Julie in Cosi, in 1996, and made her way to Hollywood, where she would move audiences over and again, from roles such as the stalwart Lynne Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999) to the beneficent Kathy Graham in Tsunami: The Aftermath (2006).
Collette also missed out on some choice roles: Involved with the production of Wild Party (for which her role of Queenie earned her another Tony Award nomination) Collette missed the request for her to take the lead in Bridget Jones’s Diary; then, though Chicago people urged her to keep her calendar open, they went forward with Katherine Zeta Jones.
But the multiple-award-winning actress is not necessarily bitter any more than she is brash or boastful. Rather, Toni Collete keeps a humble head, saying, “I’m an actor not a movie star. I prefer it that way. I think when you watch big stars on screen; it’s really difficult to look beyond that very familiar persona. As an actor, you can play different characters and not be recognized. I know I’ve got parts that other bigger, more famous actors wanted….I’m very happy with my lot.”
You should be happy, Toni, and, by the way, you are recognized. And respected.
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