STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow
Issue date:
January 2-4, 1998
This week: In the new movie Good Will Hunting, a critical favorite, Driver plays the girlfriend of a math prodigy.
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Minnie Driver: Don't expect others to make things happen, says the actress. "If there's not a part for you, create your own."
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 | | Don't be defined by a guy, Driver says. "Feel good about yourself. Go read a book." |
 EENAGE GIRLS often approach actress Minnie Driver and gush about her breakthrough role in the 1995 movie Circle of Friends. They tell her they identify with her character, a chubby frump who wins the heart of hunk Chris O'Donnell. "They'll say, 'I felt like an ugly duckling and you gave me hope. I really feel Dave will ask me out now.' "Driver, 26, resists rolling her eyes at each encounter. Her advice for would-be swans? "It's best not to hold your breath. Guys are extraordinarily unreliable. Just because the heavy girl gets the guy in a movie, don't feel like now the head of the football team will ask you out. Life doesn't work like that. Feel good about yourself anyway, not because 'Dave' wants to date you. Don't be defined by some [jerk] with a neck three sizes too big for his shirt. Go read a book!" The svelte Driver gained 20 pounds for Circle of Friends. She has since worked her way onto young Hollywood's "A list" with roles in Sleepers, GoldenEye and Grosse Pointe Blank. Her latest films are Good Will Hunting (already getting Oscar buzz), co-starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams, and the January thriller Hard Rain. On the horizon: Disney's animated Tarzan (she'll provide the voice of Jane). The actress says she succeeded by not depending on others -- whether boyfriends or bosses -- to make her life happen. Cast as a mere tree in a sixth-grade play, she ended up playing a fairy. Did the original fairy get sick? "No, I created the part for myself. If there's not a part for you, create your own." As for rejection, don't assume it has anything to do with you, Driver says. A director once dumped her from a project without explanation. Two years later, she says, he admitted, "I'd just split up with my wife, and you look identical to her. I couldn't deal with it." Driver can feel secure in Hollywood: "I don't look like too many people's ex-wives. There are a lot of blonds in this town."
Photo Credit: ANDREW ECCLES FOR USA WEEKEND
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ASK DRIVER FOR ADVICE Driver will write or call a reader who seeks advice. By January 11, write to "Straight Talk," P.O. Box 3455, Chicago, Ill. 60654 (fax: 312-661-0375; e-mail: talk@usaweekend.com).
Read poetry for therapy:
"I read a poem, then read it again and again. The first reading, you get the rhythm of the words. Then you start piecing together the thoughts, the images. Reading poetry is like breaking a code."
Keep a diary:
"Go back and read it and you can see yourself with the same problems; you're just putting different hats on them." Driver has kept a journal since she was 14.
To pull off an American accent:
"It's a tense sound," says Driver, who is English. "Your throat closes. So you have to relax, or you'll sound incredibly nasal. And there are words to be careful of, like 'been.' It's not bean; it's bin."
Try boxing for exercise:
"I box on Saturdays. Not sparring, just training." But she fears Mike Tyson's ear-biting has ruined the sport's reputation.
Don't joke about names:
With the name Minnie, "I've heard them all. I've even been out with a Mickey. But I'll probably marry the man who can make a new joke out of my name and make me laugh."
Zaslow is an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.
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