By Christine Westwood
“It was so invigorating to be part of Glassland,” Toni Collette tells FilmInk at The Sundance Film Festival. “It reminded me of why I started acting, and the experiences that I had at the beginning of my career. This was so small and concentrated and bare and raw and honest…it was a complete pleasure.” One of this country’s finest performers, Collette has made a pleasant habit of bolstering small films, lending her name to the marquee to provide support and visibility, and then smashing it out of the park performance-wise as part of the deal. Enrolling at NIDA at just sixteen, acting is in Toni Collette’s bones. She made her big screen debut in 1992’s Spotswood, before landing her career-making role in Muriel’s Wedding. A lesser actress would have been permanently typecast, but Collette has instead forged a stunningly eclectic career, boasting an Oscar nominated performance in The Sixth Sense and acclaimed turns in About A Boy, The Hours, Little Miss Sunshine, Japanese Story, Dirty Deeds, The Black Balloon, and Mental, along with the ground breaking TV series, The United States Of Tara.
In Glassland, Collette commandingly takes on the supporting role of Jean, a broken down drunk careening quickly and horribly into oblivion. “Addiction is so sad, but I didn’t want Jean to feel like a sad sack,” Collette says. “I wanted her to have a feisty sense of energy. But when I watched the film, I was so angry with her! She’s so selfish and sabotaging. But you can’t judge a character that you’re playing in that way. She is ultimately a woman with arrested development. She got to a certain point in her life when everything fell apart and she couldn’t move beyond it.”
Much more than just a lost cause, Jean’s innate feistiness constantly puts her in the thoughts of her son, John, a taxi driver winningly played by emerging American-born, British-raised actor, Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age Of Extinction, Macbeth). As his mother’s needs intensify, the inherently decent John ironically drifts into increasingly criminal activity in order to meet them. The film is the second from young Irishman, Gerard Barrett, who impressively debuted in 2013 with Pilgrim Hill. “Gerard wanted the movie to be completely honest,” Toni Collette tells FilmInk. “That’s what I love, and that’s how I want to work. When I watch a movie, I don’t like seeing the dots being joined. I don’t want there to be anything between the audience and the story, and he’s achieved that.” Gerard Barrett achieved that by keeping things ragged and unpredictable on set. “There were very few takes,” Collette explains. “Gerard had such an amazing understanding of every single moment. With Jack and I, it was really confounding…I don’t know how it eventuates, but we had this incredible connection. We were in the moment, allowing things to happen, which only comes from a having deep understanding of where you need to be in each moment. Before shooting, we had just one afternoon talking through the story. We didn’t even read scenes out loud…it felt too precious. I didn’t want to stain it by doing a half-arsed effort.” Asked if there is a moment when she knows that she’s got a character, Collette says that she is “always nervous that I’m not going to be able to do it, but then when I start, that dissipates. It’s about getting out of my head and making it practical. I had a melt down before this because I was so nervous about the Dublin accent. It was intimidating.”
Gerard Barrett, meanwhile, has nothing but praise for the brilliant Toni Collette. “What sets Toni apart is that she takes chances, and she takes a risk,” the director tells FilmInk. “I want to thank her for taking that risk with Glassland.”
Glassland is available now on DVD and Blu-ray.
