‘We Have the Freedom to Choose Who We Are’

She's been a working actor for more than 30 years, and through it all, Toni Collette has managed to stay true to herself — nabbing accolades along the way. She talks to Us about finding success on her own terms

- by CARLA SOSENKO

Toni Collette is a character actor, which is just a fancy way of saying she's talented.

It means she has chops and range and elasticity, and that she fully inhabits every role, creating something new and unique every time. Character actors aren't usually movie stars, but Collette is — she got an Oscar nom for her role in the 1999 megahit The Sixth Sense — albeit a quiet one: She's been steadily working in the industry for more three decades, amassing a résumé packed with critical darlings and fan favorites alike (often those are one and the same, like 1994's Muriel's Wedding and 2006's Little Miss Sunshine). And she's done it while raising kids and protecting her private life. "I listen to my heart and go with my gut," Collette, 52, says of the simple game plan she's followed. "That's it, because I have to live with myself." Ahead of her starring turn in Netflix's Wayward (out Sept. 25), a limited series about a last-resort boarding school for teens, she sat down with Us to talk about finding success and staying true to herself.

Wayward is, in part, about a school for supposedly problematic teenagers. How much did you know about the troubled-teen industry before taking the role?

I really did not know much at all. I was a bit of a novice, and then [creator and star] Mae [Martin] sent a plethora of information and documentaries and podcasts. It was a lot to take in. It's frightening and infuriating, [but] I think the problem with the world is that we don't encourage individuality and the freedom to be one's authentic self. Even talking about mental health in the past has been taboo or hidden away or a real problem, and it's just essential to be able to talk about these things as human beings.

Right, it's harm reduction.