TV Interview - Pageant fever

Minnie Driver on being Beautiful

In just five short years, British actress Minnie Driver has transformed from the slightly plain and pudgy heroine of the Irish romantic drama Circle of Friends (1995) into one of Hollywood’s proverbial beautiful people. Her latest movie, in fact, is called Beautiful (opening Sept. 29), which marks the feature-film directorial debut of actress Sally Field. Driver plays a young woman whose obsession with beauty pageants takes priority over everything else in her otherwise humdrum life. In the interim, despite occasionally strong-willed roles in art-house period pieces such as The Governess or An Ideal Husband, Driver has played mostly an assortment of mainstream, “straightforward” love interests opposite the likes of Brad Pitt (in Sleepers), John Cusack (in Grosse Pointe Blank) and Matt Damon (in Good Will Hunting, for which she received an Oscar nomination) — in addition to lending her voice to a number of animated films, from Disney’s Tarzan to the anime epic Princess Mononoke to a dead-on Brooke Shields impersonation in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
Driver, 30, spoke about her career and her new film during a recent interview.
CL: You and your sister [Kate] found this project and developed it. What made it so appealing to you?
MD: One of my managers had the script and brought it to us, and we read it and just knew we had to do it. For me as an actor, it was the excitement of a role that’s so non-linear in a way that a lot of female roles aren’t. Mona is broken and damaged. She may not be a particularly nice person, but I think she’s ultimately a good person. I mean, in real life, most people aren’t just one way. Yeah, she finds redemption at the end of the story, but she really pays for it along the way, you know?
How did you decide on Sally Field to direct the movie?
Well, we’d heard she was looking for a project to direct, and just in terms of some of the roles she’s played over the years, she seemed to know something about that sensibility. She was somebody who could understand a character like Mona and who’d be able to navigate her way through the story.
Do you agree some actresses might shy away from playing an unlikable character like this?
I think any actor worth their salt, anyone who’s really in it for the exercise of acting, they’d jump at the chance. On the other hand, it’s probably why I got this script and didn’t have a bunch of people trying to beat down my door to get at it, either! I like Mona’s weaknesses. They’re far more interesting to play than strength and nobility and that whole routine. I mean, that’s wonderful and all, but in terms of pushing the envelope in your craft, this was great. What I’m often asked to do is play very straightforward, intelligent, sweet, funny, nice women. To get a chance to play something so different from that, it was awesome.
You’ve made one of People magazine’s “Most Beautiful” lists before. When did you first think of yourself as beautiful? Did you always know it?
Are you kidding? Not in the slightest. Growing up, I was really uncomfortable as an adolescent and teenager. I mean, didn’t you see Circle of Friends? that was me. I guess you could say I was a late bloomer. I didn’t really start feeling happier about myself until just a few years ago, but I’m still not sure I’d say I was beautiful. It’s all so subjective, you know?
Let’s face it, though. You could be the most talented actress who ever lived, but if you were really ugly wouldn’t that be a liability to your movie career?
Maybe it’s because I’m coming from England, where that really doesn’t come into play so much. With all due respect to them, we have some of the plainest actresses in the world. It’s like, Ellen Terry was no oil painting, you know what I mean? Nor were any of the other great actresses I grew up aspiring to be. For some reason, in England you can have someone like Judi Dench. She may be this small, round, motherly-looking woman if you saw her on the street, but I was there the night she had people falling all over themselves in love with her as the sexiest, most vital and passionate Cleopatra they’d ever seen.
How hard was it adjusting to living in L.A., where there are beautiful people everywhere you look?
It makes you realize how important it is to stay focused on the fact that beauty isn’t necessarily just about how a person looks.