Minnie Magic - ‘FINDING MYSELF AT 51'

THE ACTRESS OPENS UP ABOUT AMBITION, EMPOWERMENT AND FINALLY FINDING LOVE

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Growing up in the Caribbean as a barefoot urchin, it seemed to a young Minnie Driver that Hollywood was an entire galaxy away – but as it turned out, the limelight was not so unattainable. This year, the prolific British actress celebrates 30 years in movies and the mum-of-one can’t help but feel a certain pride.

“I left drama school when I was 21,” says the Spinning Man actress. “To have carried on making a living in this profession is a feat!”

After being born in London, Minnie spent her early years living in Barbados with her mother, former model and designer Gaynor Churchward, her financial advisor father Ronnie and older sister Kate.

The young siblings went “fishing and diving for sand dollars [a type of burrowing sea urchin], which we’d try to sell to sunburnt tourists. We were quite scrappy, feral little kids,” recalls the actress with a smile.

Her parents separated when she was six and Minnie was packed off to boarding school – then, at the age of 12, she was rocked to learn that her parents “had never been married and that throughout their relationship, my father was married to somebody else and had another family”.

It was Gaynor who helped her through the shock of finding out about the unorthodox union.

“Mum was so open about their relationship and never prudish or worried about answering any questions,” Minnie explains.

When her school years were over, Minnie jetted off to finishing schools in Paris and Grenoble, then enrolled in drama school. After graduating at the age of 21, a number of minor film and TV roles followed before her breakout part in 1995’s Circle of Friends.

High-profile roles in Golden Eye, Sleepers and Big Night followed, but it was