Minnie Driver reveals heartbreaking comments that knocked her self esteem
Minnie Driver has revealed how "devastated" she felt to hear as a young woman that she was "not sexy".
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The actress was Oscar-nominated for her role alongside Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, but shared in a new interview that she almost didn't get the part because a producer told her she was not attractive enough to play Matt's on-screen girlfriend.
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"It was devastating," she said. "To be told at 26 that you’re not sexy when you maybe just got over all your teenage angst, and started to think, you know, 'Maybe in the right light and the right shoes and the right dress, I’m all right.'"
"I certainly had insecurities growing up. That I was not gorgeous. I was not super pretty," she told The Cut, adding that her family stopped her from trying to "find ways of making myself prettier".
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"I had such a lovely family going, '[expletive] that. You’re gorgeous on all these levels,'" she shared.
The 52-year-old has just released a memoir in essays, Managing Expectations.
Minnie with Matt in Good Will Hunting
In 2016 Minnie shared the same story and praised Matt and Ben Affleck for fighting for her to get the role. "I am grateful to them until this day," she told Andy Cohen, admitting she couldn't name names "because then I'll never work again, and I have to work because I have a mortgage".
Minnie was born in the UK and now has US citizenship.
She has one son, 13-year-old Henry, and has been in a relationship with Addison O'Dea since 2019.
Minnie and her son Henry
Last year she opened up about her experience in lockdown with her son, and revealed that they had been able to enjoy quality time together through dance.
"We had a really rough day – we were both feeling sad," she shared. "And we have this gigantic speaker in the kitchen, and I just hooked it up and we played Love's in Need of Love Today by Stevie Wonder, and we were just dancing. Then I was about to get a bit tearful and I was like, 'No, it's Stevie Wonder. Nobody cries at Stevie Wonder. Dance!' And we just danced."
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