Minnie Driver
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| Minnie Driver | |
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| Birth name | Amelia Fiona J. Driver |
| Born | January 31, 1970 (age 37) London, England |
| Notable roles | Good Will Hunting |
Minnie Driver (born Amelia Fiona J. Driver on 31 January 1970) is an Academy award nominated English actress and singer-songwriter, born in London to Ronnie Driver and his wife Gaynor. She first came to broad public attention when she played the lead role in Circle of Friends. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting.
In 2003 and 2004, she had a noted comic recurring role on Will & Grace as Lorraine Finster, Karen's (Megan Mullally) nemesis and daughter of Karen's lover, played by veteran British comic and Monty Python alumnus John Cleese.
Driver has also worked on several animated features, including Disney's 1999 version of Tarzan and the dubbed English version of the 1999 Japanese megahit Princess Mononoke.
On March 12, 2007, Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show The Riches, a show about a family of con artists living in the suburbs.
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[edit] Music career
Driver was born to parents of English, Irish, Scottish, Italian and French descent. She was raised in Barbados and educated at Bedales school near Petersfield, Hampshire, England, and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Prior to her success as an actress, Driver was a member of a band called "Puff, Rocks and Brown"; the band was signed to a development deal with Island Records, which ended without a release.
She began a low-profile return to music in 2000; in 2004 she signed recording contracts with EMI and Rounder Records and performed at SXSW. Canadian music producer Colin Craig assisted in the eventual release of "Everything I've Got in My Pocket", which reached No. 34 in the UK, and a second single, "Invisible Girl" peaking at No.68. An album, Everything I've Got in My Pocket, also reached No. 44 in the UK album chart, backed by a group that includes members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn's band. Driver wrote ten of the eleven songs on the album and also covered "Hungry Heart" from Bruce Springsteen's The River. In 2004, Minnie Driver was the support act for the Finn Brothers on the UK portion of their world tour.
In 2004, Driver played Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of The Phantom of the Opera. Because of the vocal requirements of the role, Driver was the sole cast member to have her voice dubbed. However, she did lend her own voice to Learn to be Lonely, a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber specifically for the film version of his musical (it plays over the closing credits of the movie).
Driver is releasing her sophomore album, which will be entitled Sea Stories sometime in the summer of 2007. The 12-track set will be produced by Marc "Doc" Dauer, who also produced Everything I've Got in My Pocket. Singer/songwriters Ryan Adams and Liz Phair are among the list of collaborators for the album.[1]
[edit] Personal life
She has been linked romantically with several of her film costars, including John Cusack, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon. It is an urban myth that Driver found out that Damon had broken up with her when he announced it on the Oprah Winfrey show[1], a version of events that both Damon and Driver have repeatedly denied[2]. Driver was engaged to marry Brolin before a sudden breakup in 2001. Driver has said her friendship with Brolin's step-mother, Barbra Streisand, was difficult. She was also linked to tennis player Robby Ginepri and illusionist Criss Angel.
Driver is a fan of Chelsea FC. [3]
[edit] Filmography
- Circle of Friends (1995)
- Big Night (1996)
- Sleepers (1996)
- Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
- Good Will Hunting (1997)
- Baggage (1997)
- Hard Rain (1998)
- The Governess (1998)
- An Ideal Husband (1999)
- Return to Me (2000)
- Beautiful (2000)
- Slow Burn (2000)
- The Upgrade (2000)
- High Heels and Low Lifes (2001)
- D.C. Smalls (2001)
- Owning Mahowny (2003)
- Hope Springs (2003)
- Ella Enchanted (2004)
- The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
- The Virgin of Juarez (2006)
[edit] Animated filmography
She had voice roles in three films released in 1999:
- Princess Mononoke (English language release)
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (where she impersonated Brooke Shields)
- Tarzan
She will also provide voice-over work for The Simpsons Movie.
[edit] Other appearances
Minnie Driver provided the voice for the female protagonist, Anne, in the computer game Jurassic Park: Trespasser.
In the James Bond film GoldenEye, she made a cameo appearance as Irina, the mistress of Bond's Russian gangster informant Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), a would-be country-western singer who performs at Zukovsky's bar in Moscow.
She also played a transsexual Playboy diva in Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, an aggressive police sergeant alongside Dawn French in a 1996 episode of Murder Most Horrid, and appeared as herself in the fifth series of Absolutely Fabulous.
[edit] References
- ^ Fyer, Jane. "The Relationship Terminator", Daily Mail, November 1, 2006.
[edit] External links
- Video Interview on the W*USA-TV 9, Washington, DC website
- Minnie Driver at the Internet Movie Database
- Minnie Driver at the Notable Names Database
- SXSW'04 Performance review from the Austin Chronicle
- Publicity and Album pages from Rounder Records
- September 2004 interview from The Guardian
- Minnie Driver at Tv.com
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Driver, Minnie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Driver, Amelia Fiona J. |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | actress, singer-songwriter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 31, 1970 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
