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• Q & A with Ms. Collette
• Article on Ms. Collette
• Little Miss Sunshine

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Tavis: Pleased to welcome Toni Collette to this program. The Oscar-nominated actress has starred in films like “The Sixth Sense” and “Muriel’s Wedding.” This summer, you can catch her not in one but two projects. (Laughs) In August, she stars opposite Robin Williams in “The Night Listener.” More on that in a moment. Beginning next week, though, you can catch her in the critically-acclaimed new movie, talking about buzz on this thing, “Little Miss Sunshine.” It opens July twenty-sixth. Here now, a scene from “Little Miss Sunshine.”

[Clip]

Tavis: (Laugh) Nice to meet you, Toni.

Toni Collette: Yes, lovely to meet you, too.

Tavis: Glad to have you on the program. I was just saying to you while that clip was running that when I was a kid growing up, we had one of those wagons.

Collette: We call them combi vans in Australia.

Tavis: Combi, okay, in Australia. You call them what in Australia?

Collette: Combi.

Tavis: Combi van.

Collette: A combi van, yeah.

Tavis: So we had one of those. That one was yellow and white in (unintelligible). Ours was blue and white. But I remember that thing fondly. Those things were fun, actually.

Collette: They were beautiful. I wanted one.

Tavis: And I recall…

Collette: When I was a teenager going through my hippie phase, I was desperate to have one. Never eventuated. I had a Beetle instead.

Tavis: (Laughs) That scene’s funny to me, 'cause I remember my mom and dad at times having to do the same thing.

Collette: Those old cars, they’ll put you through it.

Tavis: But I loved that thing. So, I have not seen this, and I'm anxious to see it.

Collette: I hope you enjoy it when you do.

Tavis: But the buzz on this – I'm sure I will. The buzz on this thing is amazing. It’s, like, the talk of Sundance.

Collette: Mm. (Laugh) That can always be, I don’t know whether it’s a help or a hindrance, but apparently, people who are excited to see it aren’t disappointed when they do, so, at least they're liking it.

Tavis: So tell me about “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Collette: Well, it’s actually a really simple story. It’s about this family who are fairly disconnected, even though they're living under the same roof, and they're forced on this journey to support the eight year old daughter in the family on her way to a beauty pageant on the other side of the country. And throughout the journey, they see each other more clearly, and they fall in love with each other again.

It’s just really beautiful. And very funny. The tone of it is, you’ll be laughing one minute and it’s quite poignant and moving the next. And it’s original, which I think is really hard to achieve in this day and age, when everything’s just rehashed and plagiarized and based on making money. The filmmakers lived with this for five years, and kind of waited for the right group of people to be involved. And I think they’ve done a good service for themselves.

Tavis: What I have seen and what I've read, there’s a lot of dysfunction, though, in this family, not unlike most families, that starts to surface. Or to your point, that people see more clearly.

Collette: Yeah, they're (laughs) highly dysfunctional, but it’s not like you're watching a wacky dysfunctional movie family. There’s a realistic feel to it. You can actually relate to these people and what they're going through. And I think that the more truthful it is, that’s when it becomes funnier for me, as an audience member, or even when I was reading it.

Tavis: When you said, a moment ago, that it’s original, and it’s harder and harder to find that kind of stuff today, what kind of situation or position does that put you in as an actor when you're looking for good stuff, and by your own admission, it’s getting harder and harder to find?

Collette: Well, they are out there. But I've been pretty lucky. I don’t have much to complain about. Some are better than others. But I don’t know, I don’t have any kind of plan about what I'm gonna work on, and there’s no overly analytical thought process that goes into it. It’s literally just having some kind of gut reaction that compels me to want to be a part of something. And I think that’s the only thing you can trust.

Tavis: Yeah. So from one project to the next, you don’t ever have any idea of what you wanna do next, even something that’s dramatically different than what you last did?

Collette: Well, I'd never wanna repeat myself and play the same kind of character, and even when I did “Muriel’s Wedding,” and I didn't really have an inkling of what was to come, I still had this feeling of wanting to – I was offered a whole heap of characters, kind of similar vein and theme. And I just thought no, I'm gonna hold out, and I'm gonna try and play different characters. And it’s worked out pretty well (laugh).

Tavis: Yeah, it has indeed. I don’t wanna be naïve about this. I guess I do get it on one hand. On the other hand, it seems a little strange. So you play one character, it becomes a huge hit, and then every studio in town, big or little, sends you a script.

Collette: Get her to play the same character.

Tavis: I've never understood that.

Collette: Well, half the actors working in this town do that. They kind of play a version of themselves. I guess every actor does, 'cause it’s your interpretation of the character that you're playing. But there are some actors who basically just do the same thing. They do it very well, and they get paid well for it. But I think personally, I'd get bored 'cause the joy of it is being able to explore these different characters in their worlds. For me.

Tavis: Let me tell you something really silly, and forgive me for this.

Collette: Okay, I look forward to it. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs) It won't be the first silly thing I've said, trust me. I was dying for you to walk on this set a few moments ago, because I wanted to see what you looked like in person. And what I mean by that is that in the characters you’ve played in your career, you've put on weight, and taken weight off, and put on weight, and taken, and I don’t know how you do that, like, up and down sort of thing.

Collette: I'm not doing it anymore. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)

Collette: I'm getting too old.

Tavis: I wanna talk about that, though. Like, how have you managed to do that? We could walk through your characters if I had the time. The ones that were bigger; the ones that were smaller. But I was, like, what is Toni gonna look like today?

Collette: Well, I guess it’s just been a matter of making each character truthful, and what I see on the page, trying to make that come to life and not letting down the people who inspired the story in the first place. So, if you have to put on weight, you eat a lot and you don’t exercise. If you have to lose weight, then you exercise and eat normally.

Tavis: (Laughs) You make it sound really simple, though.

Collette: It is simple.

Tavis: There are a lot of people, though, who wish that the weight thing, gaining or losing, were really that simple.

Collette: Right. Well, for any of the characters who've had kind of overt pseudo-obesity, I don’t ever think that that’s a problem unto itself. I think it stems from something else. So, and the same goes in life. So these people who are wondering, “Why can’t I lose weight,” I think that there’s something else going on. I think that it stems from some other emotional thing that’s unaddressed, perhaps.

Tavis: Yeah. You mentioned a moment ago, though, that you wanna stop that roller coaster thing. You're not doing that up and down thing anymore.

Collette: Yeah.

Tavis: So you don’t know what projects you wanna do, but you're certain that you don’t wanna do the up and down weight thing.

Collette: Pretty much.

Tavis: Why are we so certain about that at this point?

Collette: Well, I'm about to turn 34, and…

Tavis: Ooh, so, oh…

Collette: No, no, but my husband and I wanna have children, and I just wanna take care of my body, and, so that I can house a baby as best I can. And plus it’s harsh. It’s a harsh thing to go through. Put it on, and lose it so quickly.

Tavis: Yeah.

Collette: Can be fun, too, don’t get me wrong. (Laughs)

Tavis: Let me get really personal, now. If I get too personal, slap me and I'll back off.

Collette: Okay, with pleasure. (Laughs)

Tavis: But since you went - (laughs) you wouldn’t be the only person that felt that way.

Collette: Oh, no.

Tavis: To your point, since you raised it about you and your husband wanting to have a baby here, how do you know, particularly in a career like yours, as you mentioned earlier, where things have worked out okay, how do you know when this is, like, the right moment to do this, as opposed to doing it at a time that, like, is a bad career move, if I can put it that way?

Collette: Well.

Tavis: (unintelligible)

Collette: I don’t think that there is a perfect time. I think that when it happens, you just reorganize and prioritize your life around that. Bringing a child into the world is a massive undertaking. And I won't do it till it is at the top of the list, so everything else will fall away anyway. And jobs, they're jobs. And, well, that’s on one hand. On the other hand, it’s like this whole life experience. And I feel that you're given what you're meant to experience, in a way. So I kind of trust life enough for things to have a flow.

Tavis: So you're not worried that you have to re-enter this whole game of -

Collette: No.

Tavis: - Hollywood. This rat race thing.

Collette: I don’t think I've ever entered it, (laughs) to be honest. I don’t feel like I'm playing a game. I live in Australia, and I have these amazing opportunities come up, and I kind of travel over, and travel back, and it’s almost like a dream. Sometimes it feels like it never happened, especially with a lack of sleep. (Laughs)

Tavis: It’s such a beautiful place, Australia. Would you ever not wanna live there, or are you certain that this is where you wanna stay?

Collette: I think I'll always live there, and perhaps I'll attempt – I've tried, I tried living in London, I tried living in Ireland, I lived in New York for a year. I come here to work. But I think perhaps I wouldn’t mind living in a couple of places in Europe. Just for an experience. But I'll always return to Australia, it’s definitely my home.

Tavis: Okay, so just between the two of us, what turned you off about New York? You only stayed in New York for a year?

Collette: Well, it was working.

Tavis: Oh, yeah.

Collette: (Laughs) Turns me off?

Tavis: Yeah.

Collette: Oh, well, having to stay longer than a month. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs)

Collette: It’s just, it’s too much. The energy of it I find so exhausting. Just walking down the street can be overwhelming. It’s also incredibly exciting. So if I go in short spurts, I'm fine. But I don’t think I could live there. I would just fade into some neurotic ball.

Tavis: Now see, I was about to turn to camera one and apologize to all of my viewers in New York for Toni Collette just outright dogging the city of New York.

Collette: It’s not that I dislike New York, I love New York. In fact, I'm really excited, I'm going there tomorrow.

Tavis: Yeah, try to clean that up. (Laughs) You really are a good actress. But I don’t really need to apologize, 'cause trust me, all the New Yorkers I know are happy that one other person decided to get out.

Collette: (Laughs) So they can have a little more space?

Tavis: To leave more space for themselves. So I don’t need to apologize.

Collette: A little more smog for them to breathe in.

Tavis: Nice to have you on the program.

Collette: Yeah, lovely to meet you.

Tavis: I forgot to mention, you got a second movie out this summer, as well, that I mentioned earlier.

Collette: Yeah, I've got a…

Tavis: In August.

Collette: Yeah, a film called “The Night Listener,” which is based on the Armistead Maupin book. It’s much darker than “Little Miss Sunshine.”

Tavis: Busy summer for you.

Collette: Yeah, well, yeah. It’s fun.

Tavis: So somewhere in between, you will find time to make this baby somewhere.

Collette: No, that’s a little further off in the future.

Tavis: Nice to meet you.

Collette: You too, thank you.

Tavis: My pleasure. “Little Miss Sunshine.” Check out Toni and crew.