Toni Collette: ‘I had a track record of collapsing at the end of every film’

Toni Collette numbers among a very impressive cast that flocked to be part of Kate Winslet’s directorial debut for Netflix, including Dame Helen Mirren, Timothy Spall, Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Flynn and Stephen Merchant.

Goodbye June follows a dysfunctional family gathering around their mother over Christmas as she starts succumbing to her cancer in hospital. It’s written by Winslet’s 21-year-old son Joe Anders – whom she shares with acclaimed director Sir Sam Mendes – and tackles a very difficult and recognisable part of life with care and some good humour.

‘It could so easily have become a story about a woman dying, but it’s actually about a family living and reuniting and moving through the challenges and messiness of the biggest change we experience, the inevitable that affects everybody,’ Collette tells me. ‘And it is very familiar. There were so many people at the screenings that we’ve had… I don’t think there’s anyone who won’t relate to it.’

Somehow it feels like Collette, 53, and Winslet, 50, should have worked together before, but they’d never actually even met ahead of Goodbye June – but that’s not to say they hadn’t felt the promise of a close friendship, passing messages to each other through a mutual friend.

‘We’ve had this kind of parallel existence where we have felt like we’ve known each other, but we really haven’t. When I got the call about being a part of this, I actually was in a public place. I put a napkin over my head and cried because she was at the top of my list,’ Collette laughs.

She calls it an ‘honour’ to have not only been handpicked for Winslet’s directorial debut, but also to play her onscreen sibling, black sheep of the family, Helen.

Collette praises Winslet as a filmmaker ‘who listens, who’s focused, who’s prepared, who’s incredibly professional, but also creates an atmosphere of ease’.

‘You know, for a first-time director, she’s f***ing amazing! But we’ve both grown up making movies, so we’ve worked with the worst and the best – and I think other directors don’t get to do that. So as an actor, if you have the passion to want to direct, I think you’re kind of in the best position, because you can pick and choose what you would utilise.’

But there was one person Collette had worked with before and was chomping at the bit do so again – Dame Helen. The pair had worked together on 2012’s Hitchcock – but Collette tells me she wanted a do-over after feeling that she ‘wasn’t a fully evolved person yet’.

‘I mean, I was an adult, but that doesn’t mean anything, people grow at different speeds. So when I saw her, I was like, “I am so happy to get to do this again, because I wasn’t fully formed.” And she said, “Me too!” And that just blew my mind! Because we all continue to grow,’ Collette chuckles of the thought of Oscar-winner Dame Helen feeling the same (or at least saying she did).

The cast enjoyed a week’s rehearsal where they ‘drank tea and ate scrambled eggs and talked about the film – but also about everything in our lives’. More than once, Collette describes them as ‘family’ thanks to the close bonds that formed.

‘We didn’t want [it] to end, we were like, how the hell do we have a prequel or a sequel to this? You can’t orchestrate this kind of thing, I just feel really lucky to be a part of it.’

She is an actress who has an impressive and diverse array of films to her name, from her breakthrough in Muriel’s Wedding to her Oscar-nominated performance in The Sixth Sense and period drama Emma to Netflix’s crowd-pleasing Knives Out.

But alongside an impressive range to the parts she’s played, Collette has been drawn to darker projects like Unbelievable and Imperium – as well as supernatural horror movie Hereditary. When I ask her how she bolsters herself for these more emotionally draining parts – and if any have stuck with her after the cameras sopped rolling – she brings up Ari Aster’s 2018 horror, where she plays a grieving mother.

‘I was actually quite conscious of what Hereditary was and how it could affect me, so I took care of myself as we shot it,’ the Mickey 17 star reveals. ‘I’d kind of had a track history of getting to the end of a film and collapsing in a bit of a [heap] – just getting a cold or needing to sleep or feeling completely depleted. And at the end of that I felt fine, because I kind of figured it out as we were moving through it.

‘But prior to that… I think young actors are like, I want to do gritty stuff, and I want to really push myself! And it’s just like, you don’t have to do that!’

Collette naturally moves the conversation to method acting, a now-reignited debate since Kristen Stewart spoke about how rare it is for female actors to be associated with the technique (we’re speaking before Stewart’s comments are published). The answer for her is, ‘No I’m not’.

‘But what I did realise is that at a certain point, your body doesn’t know if what you’re telling it is true or not, so it takes on whatever feelings and thoughts you have, and I’m so mindful of that now.’

Collette selects In Her Shoes, the 2005 rom-com she did with Cameron Diaz about two sisters’ relationship with their grandmother (Shirley MacLaine), as the movie of hers she wishes had done better (although it was by no means a disaster, grossing $83.6million (£62.5m) against a $35m (£26.2m) budget, gaining generally positive reviews and considering how many fans work regarded in many fans’ minds).

‘I loved working with Curtis Hanson. He’s one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with, and it just felt like such a profound experience. From making the film and everything that goes into it, the responsibility of carrying it out, delivering it to the world, is so huge, and it so often gets fumbled. I thought it’s such a gorgeous story about sisters, and I don’t know what happened. I think it could have done a bit better.’

While she’s fulfilled many of her ambitions as an actor, she’d still – like Winslet – love to move into directing, with a few projects that she’s ‘trying to get going’.

This brings her onto discussing her track record for working with first-time directors – such as Aster, and also Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine, saying she’s ‘always surprised when actors do not want to do that, like it’s too big of a risk or something’.

‘You’d be surprised at the amount of directors who do not have a vision, who do not realise they’re at the helm of the ship, and, actually, we’re all looking at you, f***ing make a decision, you know?’ she shares.

She’s also an actress who has dodged the need to grow too much of a thick skin in her career of over 30 years by keeping one foot firmly out of tinsel town in her mind – as well as simply acknowledging: ‘I don’t listen.’

‘I mean, I probably cared a bit more when I was younger. But I’m from Australia, I don’t even see myself as being part of some Hollywood anything – I mean, I’m not an idiot, I know I’ve worked on films that would be considered a Hollywood film with people who are Hollywood stars, but I’ve always felt a little bit separate from that,’ Collette muses.

Indeed, the vibe she brings to the interview comes across as warm and authentic – singing my name as we’re introduced and pouring me water throughout our chat while cheerfully revealing she’s operating on minimum sleep. Any compliments I pay her for her work are received graciously and she smiles while suggesting she can ‘tell my vibe’ from two of my favourite films of hers, Little Miss Sunshine and The Way, Way Back (co-incidentally another director debut, this time from Nat Faxon and Jim Rash).

For Collette, somebody’s career ‘is only ever going to be as good as their intentions’ and she sees her own as pure.

‘I just love acting. I love working with other people and finding truths, that’s it. So there’s nothing that anyone can – what can you say to that? That’s a good thing, you can’t argue with that. If I slipped and had a different kind of focus, I’d maybe be more aware of being criticised or sensitive to it. I’ve done a couple of jobs just for money – I’ll never f***ing do it again, it’s a nightmare, it doesn’t feel good – so I really try to just follow my heart and listen to what is meaningful to me and respond to it as honestly as I can. That’s it.’

Goodbye June is out in cinemas now. It streams exclusively on Netflix from December 24.

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