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'It Is Different': Minnie Driver Reflects On How Hollywood Has Changed Since She Became Famous
Minnie Driver says Hollywood has changed for women since she became famous in the '90s and I recalled how women would fight to portray unfavorable dynamics.
Minnie Driver, who rose to fame in the 1990s, is now facing off as Elizabeth I of England in the second season of The Serpent Queen. And the fact that she get to dive into these juicy roles is, in her opinion, a sign of positive change in the entertainment industry. After a decades-long career in Hollywood, Driver shares the integral way the industry has changed for women since the '90s.
Minnie Driver speaks on how Hollywood has evolved for women
Minnie Driver participated in a panel discussion for the second season of The Serpent Queen at The London West Hollywood. The panel was hosted by PEOPLE, Entertainment Weekly and Starz. She discussed the evolution of opportunities for women in the entertainment industry since her big break over 20 years ago.
"We’re allowed to be over 40 now," she said. "It is different. I don't know what that was done waking up to the idea that women are really just hitting their stride when they've, I think been through the gauntlet of only being seen sexually."
Driver highlighted the changing roles and experiences of women, including the extraordinary expansiveness that comes with age, motherhood, and the choice to be childless, reflecting the evolution of bodies. "I watched a film the other night that I really wanted to be in and I am so glad I'm not in that bloody film," she recalled. "Because I've been conditioned to think that because that was the best that was on offer at that time and everyone was vying for like the same part."
Driver revealed that she watched the same movie with her now 15-year-old son who couldn't believe that an actress would want to take part. "These were the kind of dynamics that we were fighting for, longing for," she added. "And you realize, now there is so much more variety of what is asked of a female actor, which is invigorating and amazing."
This isn't the first time that Driver has opened up about experiencing unfair treatment during the '90s. While appearing on Jameela Jamil's SiriusXM podcast I Weigh with Jameela Jamil in April, she said producers behind Hard Rain, would not allow her to wear a wetsuit as part of her character's costume. She also said she complained to her agent regarding her requests to wear a wetsuit like other actors on set and that following her speaking up, people wouldn't speak to her on the set.
Minnie Driver says that marrying Josh Brolin would have been a mistake
Minnie Driver has admitted that marrying Marvel actor Josh Brolin would have been the biggest mistake of her life. She revealed in her 2022 memoir Managing Expectations that at the age of 12, she discovered her parents had never married, as her father was already married to a different woman and had a second family.
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, she discussed how her father’s double life impacted her own relationships with men. “If I look at my history, what it did was make me want to be married so much and then choose men who were so not the right men to be married to. So I would carry on longing to be married and to have that conservative version [of a relationship], find men who had no interest in that, and then if one did, run a mile.”
She continued, “The one time I was engaged it would have been, I think, the biggest mistake of my life.” Driver was referencing her engagement to Josh Brolin, whom she met on the set of the 2000 thriller Slow Burn. They were engaged in 2001 but announced their split five months later. Brolin, who played Thanos in the MCU, married Diane Lane and later Kathryn Boyd.
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