They are two very different actresses from two very different backgrounds whose previous movies do not have a lot in common. So casting Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore as best friends in a film about life, love and loss could have been risky – but it paid off.
Not only do they have great on-screen chemistry in Miss You Already but they’ve become great pals behind the scenes. They say they’ve formed an enduring friendship that will stand the test of time and even went on holiday together, as soon as filming finished, with their husbands and children.“We went to Paris, like one big family,” says Drew (40), who is married to actor Will Kopelman and mum to Olive(3) and Frankie (18 months).
“We had a great time. My eldest daughter Olive and Toni’s children are best friends.” Drew says that she and Toni (42) had met a couple of times before filming and had mutual friends – including Cameron Diaz (43) – but they really didn’t know each other. Luckily, they hit it off straight away.
“We unzipped and jumped right in,” says Charlie’s Angels star Drew. “We had the electric connection, and you can’t fake that. You hope for it, but you don’t know what it will be like when you show up.” Forming a friendship was “instant and easy”, agrees Toni, who is married to musician Dave Galafassi and mum to Sage (7) and Arlo (4). “You can never determine chemistry between actors and in this type of film, you really couldn’t fake it.
It’s pretty rare for this kind of friendship to happen… I can’t imagine not being friends now.” In the movie, Drew and Toni play lifelong pals whose bondis tested when Toni’s character Milly is diagnosed with terminal breast cancer. Meanwhile, Drew’s character Jess receives the wonderful news that she’s pregnant after years of trying. Toni was cast first, and was orginally meant to play sensible, down-to-earth Jess. But when the actress cast as free-spirited Milly pulled out – it was never revealed who that was – Toni decided to swap roles.
“A friend said, ‘You have to stop playing these grounded, supporting roles. Why don’t you play the hot mess?’”
Drew jumped at the chance to play Jess. “I was perfect for it,” says Drew, even though in her younger days she was more of a wild child like Milly. “I really wanted to watch Toni and support her going on that crazy journey.“
Toni’s character Milly is wild, while Drew plays Jess, her sensible best friend.
Drew says she channelled friends of hers who were a wonderful support in her younger years, as she dealt with her drug and alcohol problems. “My friends were more like Jess when I was going off the rails and being a little selfish and hedonistic. I wanted to tap into ‘Jess mode’. I was so in that place, wanting to be that rock.”
She did such a good job of the part that Toni says, “I can’t imagine you any other way.” Drew jokes that she’s become “old and appropriate” now that she’s in her forties and a mum.Toni takes the opposite view. “I’ll be old, but I’m happy to be inappropriate.”
The Little Miss Sunshine star was happy to shave her head to play cancer patient Milly. “I’d done it four times before, so I wasn’t freaked out. Everyone else was more freaked out than me – they gave me a bottle of vodka when I had to have it done, but I didn’t touch it.”
Toni also had to lose a lot of weight. “I lived on ham and coconut yoghurt,” she recalls. “If I ever have to eat coconut yoghurt again, I will barf.” “I was on the opposite diet,” says Drew. “I had just had a baby and had this mushy body. I was playing someone who was pregnant. I ate my face off. The poor wardrobe people! I started out with big clothes and they had to keep letting them out!”
Both actresses say they would have done anything to make the movie appear realistic because they loved the script so much. It was important to depict a cancer journey and a platonic friendship authentically.
Toni and Drew have been delighted to hear that the movie has inspired women to contact their close female friends and tell them how much they mean to them. “It has been lovely to hear of people rushing out to ring their friends,” says Toni.
The pair are now vigilant about checking for breast cancer. Drew has started having annual screening, not just because of the film but because she has recently comforted two friends who lost their mums to this type of cancer. “Because of these experiences, I get checked every year. I’m good at keeping on top of it all.”
