Caught in a ghostly web

Toni Collette tells Michele Manelis about her fear of ghosts and revisiting Muriel

TONI COLLETTE is not a name readily identified with thrillers, of late, but that’s about to change, in startling fashion, with supernatural bone-chilling new film Hereditary. Playing a troubled, grief-stricken woman, she must combat otherworldly forces while uncovering her own ancestry, which is fraught with sinister and terrifying secrets.

Critically lauded at the Sundance Film Festival for her performance, Collette found the role emotionally gruelling and physically challenging.

“It was exhausting. It was incredibly emotional, but if you don’t give it your all, the audience won’t feel it. My job as an actor is to try to make the performance as honest and as transparent and as real and natural as possible.”

That she did. In spades. This Emmy and Golden Globe awardwinning actress, 45, has turned in similarly authentic performances in movies including The Sixth Sense (1999), About a Boy (2002), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and The Way, Way Back (2013).

“Once you accept a job like this, you go into it with the knowledge that there is no way out. It was so brilliantly written. It was like a perfect psychological web of where this woman was at.”

Written and directed by Ari Aster ( C’est La Vie), the film also features compelling performances from Gabriel Byrne and The Handmaid’s Tale’s Ann Dowd.

“It was a great cast. We’re all professional, we know what’s required and we had to bring it,” she says. “I have to say, all the rumours about Gabriel Byrne are true. He is a complete dream. And Ann Dowd, a beacon of light. She’s so alive and childlike, so open and so present.”

Nonetheless, immersing herself in such dark material took a toll.

“At the end of a day, I had to shake it off, so I’d run or work out. I had to move the energy through my body so it wasn’t stuck in there. A lot of it was rather intense.”

As for her views on all matters supernatural, she says, “I’ve seen psychics and people who have different levels of intuitive abilities, but I wouldn’t mess with a seance. You’re just inviting in something dark, which is very clear in the film. But my character is so lost that she is willing to try anything to try to connect with someone that she loves, who has passed. And I think that’s kind of a common feeling to want to know where they are and try to have one more moment of connecting.”

Changing gears, Collette is also starring in Hearts Beat Loud, about a father (Nick Offerman) and daughter (Kiersey Clemons) who form a musical group.

“It’s so strange that they are opening on the same day in the US. They couldn’t be more different.” Collette, who also fronts her own band, Toni Collette and the Finish, was able to use her musical skills and belt out a karaoke cover of Chairlift’s Bruises. “Well, I started my career as a singer and I got into acting through doing musicals when I was a teenager.”

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Aussie-born actress’ husband of 15 years, Dave Galafassi, is a musician. The pair live in Los Angeles with their children — daughter, Sage, 10, and son, Arlo, 7. Is it fair to say hers is a household full of music?

“Yes, it really is. We dance most mornings,” she laughs. “Kitchen dancing is essential in life.”

Grateful that she spent her formative years in Sydney, how does she feel about her own children being raised in Los Angeles?

“Well, my kids are being raised all over the place. We have been here in LA for the last couple of years but we are endlessly travelling. The great thing is that we stick together. My kids have this great ability to be amazingly adaptable and are wonderful at communicating. I think travel is a great way to learn,” she says.

“I have found that myself because I am somewhat uneducated. I left high school, but I have had such an amazing education being able to travel the world and meet incredible people. Obviously, the luck that I have had with the jobs that I have had has contributed a lot.”

Although she’s spent most of her life outside Australia, she says, “Australia is home for us. It just is. You can’t change the feeling in your gut, and although we are able to make a home anywhere, you still have that feeling of knowing that where you belong is in Australia. You can’t really define it, it’s hard to articulate, but we do feel most at home there. We have got a great bunch of friends in LA and we have lived in so many different places and we are lucky to have friends everywhere but, really, our tribe is back in Sydney.”

A long way now from Muriel’s Wedding, which kickstarted her career back in 1994, how does Collette look back on the film that was the stepping stone to a long and diverse career?

“I have a huge amount of fondness for that entire experience. Not only was it a story that I related to and loved, but it was a lifechanging experience for me. It gave me a career that I would have never anticipated or dared dream of,” she says.

“The experience was nothing but positive, absolutely. And I’ve been lucky ever since.”