Date of Birth:November 1, 1972
Place of Birth:Sydney, Australia
Collette grew up as the eldest of three children in the suburbs of Sydney; her father was a truck driver and her mother worked as a customer service representative. Not long after her first taste of performing'in a high school production of Godspell—the teenage Collette was picked from among thousands of other prospective candidates to play the lead role in an Australian bicentennial musical. Encouraged by that early success, she left school at age 16 and began working with the Australian Theatre for Young People. In the late 1980s, she attended Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art, but left after a year and a half when she landed a role in a Sydney stage production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Toni Collette made her feature film debut in the little-seen 1992 comedy The Efficiency Expert, starring Anthony Hopkins and also featuring Russell Crowe.
Collette was appearing in a play called Summer of the Aliens in June 1993, when she auditioned for the role that would prove to be her breakthrough: the gawky, ABBA-worshiping heroine of P.J. Hogan's black comedy Muriel's Wedding (1994). Collette gained 42 pounds for the role and earned worldwide acclaim, including an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress. A number of big-screen roles followed, most notably a supporting turn as the impressionable Harriet Smith in a 1996 film version of Jane Austen's novel Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. Collette also appeared in Cosi (1996), Diana and Me (1997), and Velvet Goldmine (1998). Collette also received two more Australian Film Institute Awards, for Best Supporting Actress in Lilian’s Story (1996) and The Boys (1998).
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