Toni Collette facts for kids

Toni Collette
Collette in 2013
Born	Toni Collett 1 November 1972 (1972-11-01) Glebe, New South Wales, Australia
Alma mater	National Institute of Dramatic Art Australian Theatre for Young People
Occupation	Actress singer musician
Years active	1990–present
Spouse(s)	Dave Galafassi (m. 2003)
Children	2

Toni Collett (born 1 November 1972), credited professionally as Toni Collette, is an Australian actress and musician, known for her acting work on stage, television, and film, as well as a secondary career as the lead singer of the band Toni Collette & the Finish. She has received six AACTA Awards, one Primetime Emmy Award, one Golden Globe Award and one Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated twice for a British Academy Film Award and both once for an Academy Award and a Tony Award.

Collette's acting career began in the early 1990s with comedic roles in films such as Spotswood (1992) and Muriel's Wedding (1994). For the latter, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. In 1999, she achieved international recognition as a result of her Oscar-nominated portrayal of Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense, and a year later made her Tony Award-nominated Broadway debut with the lead role in the musical The Wild Party. In the 2000s, she received acclaim for her roles in independent features such as About a Boy (2002), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA, and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), which earned her an SAG Award as well as her second Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Her other films include: Emma (1996), Clockwatchers (1997), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Changing Lanes, The Hours (both 2002), In Her Shoes (2005), The Night Listener (2006), Fright Night (2011), Mental, Hitchcock (both 2012), Lucky Them, Enough Said (both 2013), Tammy (2014), Miss You Already, Krampus (both 2015), Imperium (2016), XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017), and Hereditary (2018).

From 2009 to 2011, she played the lead roles on the television series United States of Tara, for which she won Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress. Collette returned to Broadway in 2014 in The Realistic Joneses, for which she earned a Drama Desk Special Award.

Early life

Collette studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Kensington, New South Wales

Toni Collett was born in Blacktown, a suburb in Sydney, the daughter of Judith (née Cook), a customer-service representative, and Bob Collett, a truck driver.

She was born with the surname "Collett", but added an "e" at the end to be her stage name. In a 2015 episode of Who Do You Think You Are? she discovered that her biological paternal grandfather was an American Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy stationed in Australia during World War II, whose name Toni does not know. From an early age, Collette showed a talent for acting. She faked appendicitis when she was eleven, and was so convincing that doctors removed her appendix, although tests showed nothing wrong with it.

She attended Blacktown Girls' High School until the age of 16, and later attended both the Australian Theatre for Young People and National Institute of Dramatic Art. Her first acting role was onstage in the musical Godspell in Sydney in her early teens.

Personal life

Collette at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International.

Collette married musician Dave Galafassi on 11 January 2003. The couple have a daughter, Sage Florence, born on 9 January 2008, and a son, Arlo Robert, born on 22 April 2011.

She is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. She urged former Prime Minister John Howard to end the Australian sheep farming practice of mulesing, which many animal rights activists consider cruel.