Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Day Job: Toni Collette

The intention of this series is to pick an actor or actress and explore the "careers" within their filmography. It was a whole month ago I covered Kirsten Dunst. Now, it's time for Toni! Toni! Toni!



Toni's 'Day Jobs'
Job(s) Held Prior to Acting Professionally: Anyone know? She made her first movie at 20 years of age so she must've earned a paycheck somewhere.
Number of Films: 25 (excluding TV and voice work)
Most Frequent Onscreen Career: She's logged a lot of time as wives and/or mothers... but when it comes to working girl mode there's no true dominant role. She's been a lawyer twice (Changing Lanes, In Her Shoes) and whether or not it was a "profession" of any discernable sort she's been in four films wherein music played an important role albeit in different forms: lipsynching, rock star entourage, or singing herself (Muriel's Wedding, Velvet Goldmine, Connie & Carla, Cosi). Still, for all of the musical notes swirling about, no film has yet to utilize her appropriately in this way. I've seen her on Broadway. She's a major triple threat --spirited dancing, gorgeous vocals, and --well, you know about the acting chops. (If you've never heard her sing try The Wild Party. Her big ballad is "People Like Us")
Average Salary Working Actor: $23,470 Toni's Salary: Unknown but in seven figures.
My Favorite Career: Toni's greatest lead performance is as a geologist in the underseen Japanese Story. In supporting roles, I think I got the biggest kick from watching her temp in Clockwatchers (it helped that Parker Posey and Lisa Kudrow added to the fun)
Oddest Calling: I'll have to go with the nun who is part of a makeshift harem in Peter Greenaway's 8 1/2 Women.
Latest Profession: She played a social worker in The Night Listener and though they didn't delve into her profession in Little Miss Sunshine it's cute that she absentmindedly wore her work badge for the film's opening scenes.

What would you hire Toni Collette to do?
ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS


Tags:
Toni Collette, movies, film, cinema, australia

12 comments:

Glenn Dunks said...

I'm grinning from ear to ear right now. I lurve me some Toni Toni Toni.

Her perf in Japanese Stories is one for the all-time list really. Just stunning and phenomenal and brilliant and heartbreaking and did I say stunning, phenomenal and brilliant?

Her Muriel's Wedding perf is my #2. "My life is as good as an ABBA song. It's as good as Dancing Queen!" one of best line readings for sure.

Anonymous said...

What would I hire Toni Collette to do?

Well, to take a page out of your playbook, Nat, I'd enlist her to play Liza Minelli in a biopic or, for God's sake, just let her play a (plum) role in any (good) movie musical, for the matter.

P.S. Haven't we suffered enough with the recent casting snafus involving non-singer/dancer types (e.g. Renee Zellweger, Gerard Butler)?

Marco

Anonymous said...

I meant to say "unproven" singer/dancer types.

Scott said...

Have any of you heard Toni's music? She released an album with her band "The Finish" earlier this year. I went to see her perform - she has a quirky, folksy feel to her voice, similar in some ways to Angie Hart of Frente!.

Lyn said...

Toni's former job: Pizza delivery. (seriously)

Guess we've all gotta pay those bills!

NATHANIEL R said...

damn. you cant even imagine how much i would pay to have Toni Collette deliver a pizza to my doorstep.

Amy said...

Toni Collette is a god. Period. And I'm so happy you made this post.

I've rewatched "Muriel's Wedding" and "A Japanese Story" at least twenty times apiece. I've seen every film of her's (except "Clockwatchers", but since you "liked" it, I suppose I should.)

Yaseen Ali said...

Indeed. I was praying for her to get a surprise nod last year for In Her Shoes.

Stenar said...

I LOOOOOOOOVEEEE TONI!! And I met her at Sundance back in January! :) She's so gorgeous!

#1 Muriel
#2 Night Listener

Toni can clean my toilet. Some day I'm going to make a movie starring Toni with a soundtrack full of Sissel songs. ;)

Glenn Dunks said...

I always thought Toni would be good in a 1920s/30s setting where slightly unique looks were in and she could sing a showtune or two.

That Liza biopic needs to be a musical though, and I don't just mean a couple of throwaway scenes of her performing Liza with a Z or something.

adam k. said...

Seriously we should send a petition to someone in Hollywood about the Lizabiopic. Toni won't be young forever. She needs to do the Liza pic within like 5 years and then in 10 years she needs to star as Mrs Lovett in a remake of Sweeney Todd.

And why does everyone keep mistitling Japanese Story? It's just Japanese Story, people. Japanese Story.

Glenn Dunks said...

Why on earth did I write Stories? That's really odd of me.