Toni Collette Biography

Biography

The Australian actress Toni Collette had her ways climbing and carving before she finally reached and claimed fame. Officially claimed fame as Muriel Heslop in the 1992 "Muriel's Wedding", Toni played the role as a desperate young lady, Muriel, who is enduring life with a cruel and dominating local politician father in Porpoise Spit. Muriel finds herself cast aside by her friends, so she steals some money and takes off on an exotic holiday, looking for love and marriage.

Born Antonia Collette on November 1, 1972, in Blacktown, New South Wales, her father, Bob, was a truck driver, while mother Judy was a customer service representative in a courier service. The girl had her teen ages in the suburb area where she acknowledged herself as "westie". The young Toni spent her days with her two brothers and would climb trees, ride her bike, play basketball, basically lived an energetic Australian life. Toni passed her days as a tomboy rather than as a girly girl, taking part in nurturing the family's cats, dogs, birds and rabbits.

Toni lived a life like other ordinary teenagers before she finally decided to leave school at the age of 16 and attended both the Australian ...

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Theatre for Young People and NIDA, the National Institute of Dramatic Arts, on a three-year course. However, the headstrong, instincts follower Toni, in the end, left the formal education to give the real shot in her feature film debut, "Spotswood". Her very first real encounter in this movie seems a precise decision since she played opposite movie legend Anthony Hopkins.

For the Australian actress who prefers to be called as "actor not a movie star", a totality has seemed to pour within herself. As Muriel, Toni, helped by a dietician, gained extra 40 pounds merely in seven weeks and indeed successfully played the role that the Australian Film Institute crowned her the Best Actress in 1994. In fact, the cast also had her nominated in the 1996 Golden Globe Awards for the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture-Comedy/ Musical. Although, the price she had to pay was rather aghast. Toni had to lose even far more than the extra 40 pounds to appear in more glamorous roles and her instable weight seriously distorted her self-image, leading her to suffer from panic attacks and bulimia throughout her early twenties.

There has been some inside stories as ...