Toni Col­lette: ​‘This film tack­les the idea that it’s taboo to talk about grief’

Hav­ing first achieved cult rev­er­ence for her role as the awk­ward epony­mous char­ac­ter in Muriel’s Wed­ding, Toni Col­lette has worked as a chameleon­ic char­ac­ter actor for 25 years and count­ing. She deliv­ers a blis­ter­ing per­for­mance as Annie Gra­ham in the ter­ri­fy­ing meta­phys­i­cal ghost sto­ry, Hered­i­tary. When she called from the LA set of her next fea­ture (Dan Gilroy’s Vel­vet Buz­z­saw), the Aus­tralian couldn’t have been less like her on-screen per­sona – but was only too hap­py to talk us through the process of mak­ing a mod­ern hor­ror classic.

LWLies: What was your first response when you received the script for Hereditary?

Colette: I real­ly wasn’t look­ing to do any­thing like that, which my agent knew, and they sent it to me say­ing, ​‘We real­ly think you should check it out’, and they were right! I think the hor­ror derives from the fact that before that kicks in, you actu­al­ly real­ly get to be with these peo­ple who are in quite a lot of pain – it’s more a study on grief and fam­i­ly dynam­ics. When I read it, it felt heavy but in a real­ly beau­ti­ful, hon­est way. It took its time, and it doesn’t become ridicu­lous. The hor­ror is an exten­sion of what’s hap­pen­ing – which is what makes it even scarier.

It’s such a slow burn. You real­ly see the way this whole fam­i­ly unrav­el. Peo­ple have been quick to just cat­e­gorise it as a hor­ror film, but I think it’s about so much more than jump scares or gore.

And none of that is gra­tu­itous. It’s all down to Ari [Aster]. I’m telling you, this guy is the real deal. I real­ly didn’t want to do any­thing heavy or emo­tion­al, but I just couldn’t help myself because it was just so bril­liant. When I met him he was so aware of what he want­ed to do, and I realised I’d nev­er worked with a direc­tor who was that thor­ough, and metic­u­lous. It was an intense expe­ri­ence but it was very sat­is­fy­ing as well.

Do you see any sim­i­lar­i­ties between Annie and the roles you’ve played in the past or did this feel like some­thing com­plete­ly different?

Every char­ac­ter I’ve played feels dif­fer­ent, but with Annie in par­tic­u­lar, it was real­ly nice to play some­one where I wasn’t afraid of her being unlik­able. There’s quite a nar­cis­sis­tic edge to her – she’s so absorbed in her own pain and her own neu­ro­sis – but also a sense she needs to be tak­en care of, and that she’s a lit­tle unhinged and vul­ner­a­ble. Grief is hideous for peo­ple to go through; it’s a part of life that’s real­ly dif­fi­cult but it’s taboo to talk about it. I love that the film tack­les that, and the fam­i­ly all engage in it in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way.

How do you find the nec­es­sary emo­tion­al space to per­form these sorts of roles, which must be quite draining?

I knew what was required of me with Hered­i­tary, and I could feel it some­where inside of me, but it was a case of kind of hold­ing every­thing at bay and resist­ing going there until it was absolute­ly nec­es­sary. Oth­er­wise it would just be too much. It’s not like I’m get­ting caught up in the sto­ry and sud­den­ly feel like I’m the char­ac­ter – I think that’s utter bull­shit when actors talk like that. This role was a lot though, so I saved it for when the cam­era was rolling. I even tried not to think about it. It was just erupt­ing when necessary.

I read an inter­view with you from 2002 where you said that ​“act­ing is a weird form of tor­ture”. Does that apply even more so to a film like Hereditary?

When I first start­ed act­ing I used to feel very over­whelmed by my emo­tions, and act­ing gave me an out­let to express myself. When I said that, I was prob­a­bly try­ing to retain my own emo­tions, but my rela­tion­ship with act­ing has changed over and over as I get old­er. I don’t know how to do it oth­er than give 100 per cent so it does get a bit exhaust­ing, but oth­er than that, it’s so excit­ing to work on some­thing that feels spe­cial, which Hered­i­tary did.

That sense of this being some­thing spe­cial came across when I saw it. Every­one in the cin­e­ma seemed com­plete­ly blind­sided by it. I haven’t seen it with an audi­ence yet.

I do like the fact also that this film in par­tic­u­lar lends itself to the idea of watch­ing it in a the­atre, in a com­mu­nal space and not just on your bloody phone or in bed. It’s actu­al­ly excit­ing to watch it with oth­er peo­ple because you almost need that com­fort. I don’t want to get polit­i­cal, but I think that there’s this push to make peo­ple live in a kind of ostracised, iso­lat­ed way, and every­thing in soci­ety feeds that idea. I think the more peo­ple can come togeth­er the better.

What do you think it about the rela­tion­ship between par­ents and chil­dren that makes it such a prime theme for hor­ror films to explore?

I think it’s just real­ly inter­est­ing to explore on every lev­el and in every art form. The psy­chol­o­gy of the con­nec­tion between a par­ent and child is just so incred­i­ble. I’m lis­ten­ing to an audio­book called ​‘Dif­fi­cult Moth­ers’ at the moment – I wish I’d had it when I was shoot­ing Hered­i­tary because it is pret­ty much all about what we absorb from our prime care­giv­er. Cer­tain­ly with Annie, her whole life she’s just had an unset­tled feel­ing and nev­er under­stood it. One of the most hor­ri­ble things about this movie is that there is no hope. No light and no hope. I think that’s why peo­ple have had such strong reac­tions. And like you said – this isn’t just a hor­ror film. In essence, it’s a fam­i­ly dra­ma. Peo­ple who just love hor­ror will love this, but peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in psy­chol­o­gy, or who are inter­est­ed in aes­thet­ics, will be drawn to it too.

Hered­i­tary is released 15 June. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.