That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Minnie Driver

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

On this week's pod, Gaby is joined by the amazing actress and writer, Minnie Driver. As well as talking about her incredible career, and quite mad life, Minnie also tells us what makes her belly laugh. (**SPOILER ALERT, IT'S A GOOD OLE FASHIONED JOKE!) From filming in New York, to living in LA, from championing women to becoming a mother, we cover an awful lot in a short space of time. We hope you'll get as much joy from listening to this episode, as we did from making it! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mini Driver, my daughters tease me because they say I'm obsessed. I am. This is, it's taking me a year. Why are you obsessed with me? Because you say all the things that I think. But then I get in trouble for saying them, Gabby. Is that also why you like it? Because then you go, like, oh my God.

No. He says it and then gets in trouble. No. I don't think you should get in trouble. And my favourite thing ever is any time anyone interviews me and says, how do you juggle? I always think, Mini Driver, because if anyone would to say that to you,

you say, no one asks a man, how do you juggle? I've got to say, when I was becoming an American citizen and you have to go and pass an exam, an oral exam, they ask you all these questions that you sit around learning about how many senators there are, how many Congress people, you know, what's the 13th Amendment? And one of the questions that this guy asked me was, had I ever been a prostitute?

And I said, and I said, no but do you ask men that question and he looked at me and then he went yeah and I was like you ask men if they've been prostitutes and he was like yeah and I still don't know if I believe him but anyway they ask you and what have you said yes I don't think they would have let me be an American citizen and I actually would have had a big problem with that because what about all the prostitutes sex workers provide a service yes and have done for time immemorial but it was also the word prostitute, it was, it's really, it's so interesting. It's like the way that stuff is framed for women is just different. Always. And also the way that every single interview, so

when I was doing all my research on you and everything, every single interview says the same thing to you and it's like, oh my God, please stop talking about him. Please stop talking about that. Stop, I just it sort of I got, I turned into you

listening to them all thinking, How do you just not say, please stop now? Enough is enough. You know, it's so funny. I just did an interview today and the lady did the lady, the woman did that. And I said to her, I was like, do you know what I think it is actually? I know the moment I stopped defining myself by that because I kind of believed the press about that I was defined by that.

The minute I stopped doing that, which was basically getting older, and feeling love where I used to feel resentment and anger and being really joyful in my own life with my kid and my boyfriend, that's when you're sort of free of it. And in a way, it becomes other people's narrative. And it ceases to have its hold on you. It might be annoying that it's still out there and it is. But again, if you cease to be defined by that,

I think less and less people are able to do that. So I had to stop agreeing with that being defined. by a relationship that happened 25 years ago. We're not. No, no, we're not. We're not. But I think in general, just in general terms, people, we have to, even though it's, we think that stuff is being done to us, we have to decide that it isn't.

We can choose to disengage with that narrative. And it's hard because it feels counterintuitive. But I think it's possible. But also it's there in front of us all the time. When you started out, there wasn't Twitter. There wasn't Instagram. There wasn't immediately. to have people's opinions

but now there is and if you can close off to that that's really powerful and also you use the word because this podcast is called reasons to be joyful and I love that you went straight in and used the word joy and I get

that from you even when I first interviewed you which I think was 1995 which was about three months ago I think that I got joy from you I always got joy from you And I know there was stuff, because after the interview, we talked about stuff that was going on, but there was joy. And I love that you now have captured it.

I think it's quite, I think it's so much a concept joy, and we hear a lot about it. But to actually live it is, it's tricky. It's tricky. And you think it should be, you know, because I do think you get swept up in all the stories that you tell yourself. We don't really tell ourselves many stories of joy. We tell ourselves stories of stress and of work and of worries about money and our kids and our partners and the planet. And I don't, you have to actively tell yourself stories of joy.

I was just listening to this podcast, which I listened to religiously, which is called This American Life. It's an American podcast. And it was a whole episode on Delight and how you have to actively choose it. And I think that's really true. I think it's the same with all of it. We're all thrust negativity in our faces, especially the news. I mean, we can't deny what's going on in the world.

And you can't just brush it away and go, oh, let's all skip everywhere. It's not quite like that. But what you put out is very powerful. Actually, your book is extraordinary. Oh, thank you. It really is. And I love that you put it out there.

It's the narrative and it's the way. that you want people to see it from, I mean, the travel on your own at 11 from Barbados was... That was quite nice. And I know everybody talks about that, but reading it, and then I listened to the audio book as well,

hearing you tell the story, nuts is, yeah, it's a nice way of putting it. It is, it is. It's funny, when I was figuring out what I wanted to write about, because I wrote it during COVID, it was like, okay, well,

if I was going to have, write a book, what would it be? Well, what are the stories that I've always, you know, that I've told on the beach around the fire and in my sitting room and lunches and dinners? What are the stories that I've returned to? And I realized how much I

loved them, but when I actually looked at like a pracee of the stories, particularly that one, I'm going to Miami. It is really weird. It's extraordinary. It's really strange that, like, an 11-year-old would be put on a plane by themselves and sent to, arguably,

At that time, certainly one of the most dangerous cities in America in 1981 to one of the most infamous hotels in the world and just set free to do whatever they would do for a day and a night. Like it was, were you scared? I don't remember being scared. I was pissed off and I was sad. But I always believed, erroneously, that what was happening to me was,

I deserve is the wrong word but like I accepted what was happening to me you know I was like oh so we're doing this now I'm in a hotel room well he also gave me his credit card so now I'm gonna max out his card because do you think is that I mean it's a very mature way

to behave at 11 I think we hope that we will be like that now but but the 11 years old Because you've got your boy's 14. Yeah. Was he like that at 11? Could he have coped with that? He would have been fine.

I think he would have been fine. I think he would have been scared. Yeah. The thing was because I knew I thought I was in trouble. Like I was sent away from my dad's house because of a fight that had happened. And so I felt like it was, I deserved it. It was a punishment.

Therefore, it was meant to be hard. So any hardness that I came across, which was not, you know, this hotel, they were all so astonished to see an 11-year-old. I didn't come across much harshness except my solitude and the weirdness of putting myself to bed and nobody telling me to brush my teeth and feeling alone. But again, like I said, there was a weird acceptance of us. Like, oh, well, this is what's happening because I did this thing. And now this is what's happening, so I better just get on with it.

Are you like that now? No. I... Do you accept? No, I buck against it. My boyfriend is the most accepting, extraordinary person. I watch him do it, and I try and copy that. No, I'm far less accepting.

I used to say this thing to my mother, which was, I used to be so evolved, and she always thought that was really funny. But I feel like I did used to be far more zen about things. and then it's almost like you learn the learned behaviour is that it's hard and that people judge you and that you have to

if you don't censor yourself then you will be judged and the media will judge you and you know what I mean that you're kind of it's strange it's a strange one but I have learnt acceptance

my mum dying kind of forced a journey of learning what acceptance looks like and my life not looking the way that I ever thought it would, you know. Did you envisage your life? Did you envisage yourself, obviously, a singer at the beginning? Yeah, I did.

I saw... Please keep singing, by the way. I do, I sing all the time. Good. I got to make a record. I've got to make another record. Good, do it. I love it. Being another musical.

Yeah, but so you're talking about your mom and... Yeah, what was I saying? About your mom and about acceptance and about... how you were then as opposed to how you are now? I think when you, I think surviving things that are really hard, whether that's grief or heartbreak or whatever that looks like in your life, there is a certain acceptance comes along with that, with the recovery. You know, acceptance and healing, I think, is synonymous.

So when you get to experience that, I think when I started going, here I am in this day and it's okay, and if I weep and it's all right, and if I weep openly and people see me doing that, it's also all right, I realised that I'd accepted more of the grief and of her dying and of her life and of the imperfection of it and of all the unanswered questions and all of these things, which, you know, when somebody dies, it's not,

there's so many there are so many questions still and you have to begin this relationship with the dead person that is like a one-way conversation but you realise that there is actually there is still a quality to asking questions that don't immediately have an answer

does she answer I mean my mum died 26 years ago where she was very young and there are times when I wish I'd asked her certain things and I try and ask her and I sort of get an answer but I'm not sure I think it's her that's telling me that

that's so funny because I was I've just been writing about exactly that like is that is that her or is that my brain generating it and I'm I don't think it matters I don't think it does either

I'm so pleased you said that because I don't think it matters that it's no you don't need that it's what you're taking in yeah exactly if you're getting if you're getting what you need, then the origin of it,

whether it's her or whether it's you channeling her or whether it's you channeling the part of you that is her, who cares? You're getting the answer. Did people say to you when you were little that you've got a very wise head on young? They said I was a nightmare. They told me that I was too loud. I probably had ADHD or something.

I mean, I was so frantic, I mean, energetic and constantly moving. a dervish and always loud and always being told to be quiet and always wanting to sing and dance and and I think take up a lot of space and certainly more space than you were supposed to take up you know in the late 70s were you was there a shyness about it or were you just out there was there part of you that kept yourself to yourself no no it was purely experiential and feral not performative so much as feral just in terms of like rooting around for life just very, very present in life.

And I think that my parents found that very difficult to understand and to know what to do with. Because even though my mum was super strangely expansive and interested in the world and not very buttoned down, and my dad was pretty buttoned down, yeah, they didn't really know what to do with me. you know and that's why I think my school was such an amazing place to wind up because they they didn't know what to do with me either but they sort of roared with laughter at that and just put me to work doing everything trying everything and that was sort of the answer

so you went off to you went to boarding school and and I've lovely when you just mentioned your school you smiled which is a really there's not many people that do that yeah but you you just smiled about that but then you Then you became the performer that you probably always were as a child. That might have been the, you know, being loud. I mean, anyone who would sit here and watch your child do that, they'd probably say, oh, they should be on stage.

Exactly. They should be on stage. But you ended up doing it, and there you were as a singer and an actor, and suddenly we knew you, everybody knew you. Was that what you wanted, do you think? I mean, it's so funny because I suppose it must have been subconsciously, but you know, growing up in England, you're not primed and you're certainly not thinking about fame wasn't a concept. It is now, sadly. It is.

It's completely different now. Yeah. With what? No, just famous. Exactly. But then it wasn't that. No. And also the notion of being a musician or an actor, it was in it.

England, it was to go and, you know, it was to play the Brixton Academy or it was to be on stage at the RSC. That was, that was as much as my head could conceive of. So the whole moving to America and that whole thing, that was never conscious. That was just moving with the tide of what was happening again. Like everything that was happening, I just went with what was happening in that moment. And when I went for a weekend to America and then never left, it was because I was just following what was happening. But that's incredible. There's not many people that can say that. Because people have fear that comes in the way.

Oh, I'm going to go there without that. I'm just going to go with the flow. That's what everybody wants to be able to do. You, maybe, yeah, maybe. I never, it's weird. I've only ever started thinking about it as that going with the flow thing really recently. But that is, I suppose, what it was. At the time I thought about, well, I just don't want to go back.

I don't want to go backwards. I want to keep moving forward. So there was a feeling of propulsion of, well, I'm here, and then I'm here for this weekend, and then I got this film quite by accident on this weekend in New York. And then I made that film, and then when I was making that film, on my lunch hour, I went in audition for another film,

and then I got that one, and that also filmed in New York. So now I've been in New York for now. Now I'm there two years, and I haven't been home with my, you know, my three bras, five pairs of knickers, two pairs of jeans and a, you know, slutty dress. Come on. It's so weird. You know what I did?

Yeah, because it was the 90s. I bought a slip dress. Fabulous. What colour? You know, it was like nude and I wore it with no bra and very high wedge cork heels. And I thought I looked so hot. And I think probably was quite hot. I was like, everyone's hot when I'm 24.

So two years, you're in New York and your life has changed. Yeah, it changed. Incredibly. But again, it's like, I made, you know, I made one really good friend, and she is still one of my best friends in the world today. And it's what you really need. Like, I had this thing that I love, this job, I just, still to this day, I love being on a set more.

Apart from being with my kid and my boyfriend and my dog or surfing, I like being on a set. It makes me happy. When I see cable on the road outside, if I see a film set, I'm always nosing around just to see who's there. Is there any ADs that I know? I feel better sitting in a director's chair for hours waiting around. I love it.

So I was there very happy doing that in New York. And then I had my one friend and my slip dress. And we lived in this crazy apartment. And I was like, you know, what else am I supposed to do except this? It's very interesting. Use the word love for your job because people don't like it when people. people say that. For some strangers,

I say the same about television. You saw me well up. Because when you say, I love my job. I love, and you said, I love my son and my boyfriend and the dog. But you love your job. To be able to say that, we are so like. Beyond, and beyond, beyond, beyond.

And that was my dad's, he didn't give me a huge amount of advice, but that was one of the things that he said when I was very young, which is, if you possibly can, No, not if you possibly again. He said, find what you love, and if you possibly can, get someone to pay you to do it. Great advice.

It's true. But find out what you love. And then I guess that then requires, it requires commitment and taking a leap of faith to go, I need to take this beyond it being a hobby or something that I do. And I don't quite know what the, what I don't know what the difference is between what gives you the, courage to go, I'm just going to try. Yeah, because you went with the flow. That wave was going, so you went with it.

And I don't know if there's many people that would do that. Well, I mean, it's just... We all want, everybody wants to. Everybody wants to be able to have the freedom to do that. I was also really young and not encumbered by any sense of anything except my own delight. I didn't have, you know, I didn't... Oh, you see, how wonderful is that? But that's, I think that's...

I think a lot of, I think young people, I'm saying young people. I think young people need to remember that, like, that their youth is like rocket fuel. You know, you can do anything. You know, you really can. You just have to decide and you have to be prepared to, like, not have to take chances, to, like, not have any money. But, like, what you're paid, that feeling of rightness, like, it felt so. right, even though I didn't know anybody in New York and it was scary and it was overwhelming

at times. It felt completely right. So what happened after that? Where did the wave and the flow take you? Well, so then my friend, Alexandra, she found out that her boyfriend was having like three other relationships with different women and she was like, I have to get out of New York and she was a screenwriter. She was like, I'm moving to L.A. Will you come? And in a heartbeat, I was like, well, I'm not staying here if you're not here. So let's go. That you're still friend, best friend. Yeah.

So I was like, let's go to LA. And she has this trick for finding apartments. So I was like, we're never going to find a place. We're never going to find a place. Like, how are we going to find? She's like, I'm going to find a place. And she found us this crazy old duplex, which is just like a two, you know, it's, it was cantilevered out of the, like you see in the movies out over a canyon.

So it's like an apartment that's on giant stilts. that just looked out over the city. And it was falling to pieces. It was like this 60s relic. Oh my God. That sounds incredible. It was so fun. And it was kind of falling down.

And then we, yeah, we lived there for three years. It is your whole story is a film. I mean, I know lots of people say that. And again, all the interviews and everything I've heard you do and I've watched you do. It was, oh, they're going to make a movie out of this. I was going to make a movie out of this. But it's your real life. So for everybody else, we all sit here in wonder and think,

oh, you did this, and at 11, you did that, and then you lived over the canyon, and you were in L.A. and, you know, all of that. But that was your reality. It's not a movie. It's not a film. That is your reality. So looking back on it and writing the book must have been

incredibly powerful. Is that the right word to use? I think what it did was make me appreciate, I think it made me appreciate my life actually writing it all down because I took in myself a really hard time for, do you? Well, I did. I definitely believed all of the, all of the, you know,

there are terrible things written about you when you're, when you're, when you get famous because, you know, there's opinions. There was no recourse then. There was no social media. So you couldn't make a video responding to something or let people see who you actually are. You were totally metabolized through the lens of the media.

And that was definitely really hard. And I don't think I appreciated my life as it was happening. I think I was just on the run. But writing it, I really did start looking back. And it was, I mean, it was so, it was so fun. I mean there was a lot of heartbreak but it was so fun.

But it doesn't heartbreak make us what we are? And it happens to everybody. You know, it's not, it's not, it's not personal to me. It might have been more public sometimes but it was, I think I spent a lot of time just, I think being on the run that's a good way of putting it.

That's interesting. And then eventually feeling like, God, this is being able to connect with really loving what you do. Like every time I come back, to making a TV show or a movie. I just love it. So you just said it's when you arrived,

you said you'd just been in, where, you said you were in Atlanta? Yeah, so this year I've been in Atlanta and in, I'm going back to France on Sunday, I've been for the last three months or four months making a TV show there. How awful. That just is really tough.

Really tough. I'm actually never shot anywhere as glamorous as four. France. Like it is pretty amazing. Whereabouts? In the South France? Yeah, in the South France and then in the Loire. Oh, very nice.

Absolutely incredible. But boiling hot and in Elizabethan clothes, it's quite hard, but amazing. Like, because it's still that, all of that stuff is just like, you know, three and a half hours and hair and makeup. Three and a half hours? Yeah. What did they do? Sorry, in the nicest possible way. They don't need to do that.

I have, very beautiful. I have prosthetics. Oh, okay. It's nuts. It's really, it's really, I wish I could just talk about it, but they haven't, they told me I'm not allowed to say yet. Okay. It hasn't been announced. Prothetics in France, we'll call it.

Presetics in France. Yeah. And, um. And Atlanta. And then in Atlanta, I was shooting. Nope, that was a different, that's a pilot for a TV show that I really hope gets picked up. So then I get to move to Atlanta for like four months and shoot the show. And then that's really, that's the, um, that's the, um,

we remade a peep show. Oh, oh my God. You can't remake peep show, obviously, but you can use the conceit of the show, which is a POV show. And it's staggeringly weird and really amazing. It's really, they did, I mean, I think it's amazing, but I don't know if they're going to pick it out.

We'll see. It's nuts. But it's really, there's really no relation to, obviously, the OG peep show, except that it is a POV show. So you're only ever. acting with the barrel of a lens. You're never looking at another actor in the face.

Oh, fantastic. Super weird. So how will you do that if you're in France? Well, so in... With prosthetic. That has been eight episodes of something that's a closed-ended... Oh, I see. I've just been in, this TV show in France.

Oh, the French one? The pilot is... We'll see if that show gets picked up and then I'll go and do it. Yeah. Okay. I love that you're so busy. Please, will you keep singing? And I know I said that before.

I do. I actually do. do have to go and write more music. I do. And my, um, I've got lovely friends who are musicians who are constantly saying we need to write and do something. So I will. Singing's so good for the soul. Yes. And I don't believe anybody can't sing. I agree. Or dance actually. Well, you haven't seen the dance. Seriously. I don't call it dancing. I call it jumping. I can jump in time to the music, but no dancing. But singing is so, so important. So with your baby boy, are you happy to talk about him?

So has he read the book? How does he feel? Does he know all the stories? Or is he just your mum? That's it. I definitely said when I was, because obviously we were all banged up together during COVID, me and my boyfriend, my son. And I definitely said to him, look, I'm going to write one of the stories is going to be of your birth. I was very conscious, like anything that.

that I wrote, I did it with the idea that he would one day read it and to make sure that I can still tell the truth about my experience whilst also making it something that wouldn't be hard for him to metabolise later. But he's funny, Henry. You know, he sees all the different aspects of he comes on set with me. He sees when it's good. He sees when I'm irritated and sad. he sees the kind of glamorous red carpet thing and then I know on it but I'm just his mum that's exactly what you are that's actually first

it's not then your mum it's your mum with all of that shit behind you exactly but he sees it in con that all of that stuff is I think it's funny to him like he he knows that it's my job it's like part of my whole thing but he's very circumspect about does he want to do it I don't know I don't I don't know I don't know No. He's a really good performer. He's a really good musician. I mean, to me, and he gets so annoyed. He gets really annoyed now when I big him up, like, out loud.

But all parents do that. But genuinely, he's definitely, he's definitely an artist, I think. So we'll see. I don't know what he's going to make. He might make music. He might be an actor. He might be a director. Might be a music producer. I don't know. You know, there's a bit that everybody says, you know, there's somebody that's funny bones or, you know, that people give people labels. Honestly, you have a twinkle.

You have a twinkle. And I remember it in 1995. And my co-presenter, Chris Evans and I, we both. And he just, you really have this. You have something so unique and so special that I want you to keep doing what you do. And there's not many people I look in the eye and say that to, but you have to. And have you done TED talks? No.

Why not? I don't know. Ted never asked. me. Wait, Ted, no, seriously, you've got to because I think a lot of... What would I do is Ted talk about empowering women and for speaking up. I do quite like the idea of speaking. I think speaking up is, I do like that.

And you're a woman who supports women. Yeah. You get that from you. So every time I see you interviewed it, every time I, you know, you have your own podcast, all the things that you do, you're supporting others. So you've gone through your stuff but you're supporting others. You've got to do a TED talk.

You should actually be president. You could be president of America. No, I wasn't born. You have to be born in America to be president. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't want that job. I mean, I would never want that job. No, actually.

No. Oh my God, it's the worst. Or marry a member of the royal family. No. No. The worst. Or prime minister of this country. No.

Although I'd quite like you to do that. There's a few No, I want you to be Prime Minister I want you to jump up and down outside. Jumping up and down outside number 10.

I'd pay, I'd pay good money to watch that. We need to save the planet. Let's all dance. Exactly. Yeah, maybe it will work. Who knows?

It can't be worse than what's currently happening. Jumping up and down and saying can we save the planet feels like it might be a step in the right direction. We get a cab now and do it now. What?

makes you belly laugh? We always ask everybody on this. Oh my God. What makes you properly laugh? You have got the best laugh. I mean, you've got a filthy giggle. I love a good, I love a good joke. I love...

You love a good joke. I love a good joke. A proper old-fashioned joke? Yeah, I have one... Yeah, I have one joke and I can't tell it because it's filthy. You can tell it? Can I... I love filthy?

Okay, the producers listening to... in, you'll see. I'll just tell you the joke because I'll tell you the joke. A bloke walks into he walks into a pub with an octopus and he goes, my octopus can play any

any instrument in the world. And the guy goes, I'm ready. Okay. And he gives him a trumpet and the octopus looks at the trumpet and he kind of talks around, hold it up to his beak and then he starts blowing

like Miles Davis. And the guy goes, oh, pretty good. And this other guy comes and he gives him a guitar and the octopus takes the guitar and he starts shredding like Jimmy Hendrix and it's amazing. Wow, that's really

astonishing. And then the guy comes in and he comes in and he gives the octopus a set of bagpipes. And the octopus is just like looking at the bagpipes and like holding it up to its beak and the guy goes, you know, you see,

nobody, nobody could play the bagpipes. So the octopus can't play the bagpipes. And the octopus goes, play it. I'm going to fuck it if I can't stand for your arms off. That's fine. We're keeping it in. We're keeping that joke in. That says so much about you because I was thinking,

right, I've got to come up with a joke now to see if I can make you laugh. My joke is so pathetic. I'll be the judge of that. What is it? It makes me laugh even before I say it. Okay, good. Okay.

What do you call a man with a car on his head? What? Jack. What do you call a man with a citron on his head? What? Jack. It's my favorite joke. My kids just look at me and they go, Mom.

Stop it. I love that. I've never heard that. I thought I'd heard all of the what you call a man or a woman. I thought I'd heard all of those. I haven't heard the women ones. What do you call a nun on a washing machine?

Systematic. Oh, you see? I know. I like Jack and Jacques. That's very funny. That's why I love you and I've been chasing you for a year to do this podcast. Many Driver, thank you so much.

Thank you, Gabby. For a joy. You are too.