Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, thanks for pulling up a chair today on
Speaker 1: Table for two. This is Bruce on a beautiful, hot,
Speaker 1: so cool day, and we are not in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: We are by the beach.
Speaker 1: We're having lunch today in Santa Monica at the Shutters Hotel.
Speaker 3: We so have a drink.
Speaker 4: I wasn't getting it, but I've got to struggle all
Speaker 4: the way back to Malibron, probably says again under the
Speaker 4: full moon.
Speaker 1: Today, we're having lunch with an actress that you all know.
Speaker 1: She's not from the United States. She's actually from across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean. You probably know her best from her
Speaker 1: role in Goodwill Hunting, which is like quite the cult
Speaker 1: classic at this point.
Speaker 5: But she's busy.
Speaker 1: She has two films opening in the Toronto Film Festival.
Speaker 1: She's got an incredible podcast, she's written a memoir.
Speaker 3: Oh wait a minute, No, you know what I want you?
Speaker 3: I get a share the time.
Speaker 2: That is sweetest drength.
Speaker 1: Anyone's I'm able. We're having lunch today with Mini Driver.
Speaker 1: Pull up a chair, enjoy, grab a glass rose on
Speaker 1: this hot summer day, and.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with Miss Driver.
Speaker 5: I'm Bruce Bozzi and this is my podcast Table for Two.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, if you've joined us today, if you've pulled
Speaker 1: up a chair on Table for two today, we're in
Speaker 1: a completely new space. We're at the Shutter's Hotel in
Speaker 1: by the Beach, very fitting, as you will all find out.
Speaker 1: An incredibly beautiful actress, woman, singer, writer. Your podcast blows
Speaker 1: me away. We are having lunch with miss Minnie Driver.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Table for two.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, brit Oh my god, it's
Speaker 4: a pleasure, lovely to be here.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Okay, your surfer, Yeah, every day surfing.
Speaker 3: When I'm here. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And today we went out early because I was coming
Speaker 4: here and my best friends Cameron, Cameron Richardson.
Speaker 3: And Mini Mortimer.
Speaker 4: I know, we never get surfed with each other because
Speaker 4: everyone's the minute school goes back, everyone's blown to the winds.
Speaker 3: So we went super early. I was up at six.
Speaker 4: It is the most beautiful day, like those these kind
Speaker 4: of dog days of summer.
Speaker 3: The ocean is glassy, the air is like silk.
Speaker 4: It's it's beautiful, pinky blue light that early in the morning,
Speaker 4: and it was just us just trading waves.
Speaker 2: And what is surfing? What feelings does it evoke for you?
Speaker 2: It draws you to.
Speaker 3: There is something about the confluence of.
Speaker 4: Your body and your soul, the active feeling of the
Speaker 4: strength that you need to have when you're surfing, the
Speaker 4: wonder of your body as you're.
Speaker 3: Flying down the face of this wave in harmony with
Speaker 3: this unbelievably powerful ancient ocean.
Speaker 4: That's as close as I've got to feeling my soul,
Speaker 4: I mean, apart from honesty when my.
Speaker 3: Son was born.
Speaker 4: Those are the two great moments where I feel the
Speaker 4: presence of something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I'm learning about you, where I've seen in
Speaker 2: your eyes.
Speaker 1: Is the importance of connection that you have with people
Speaker 1: that you have.
Speaker 2: And I don't surf for some reason. I have a
Speaker 2: fear of it. I never learned it. I think, how
Speaker 2: did you What was the first time You're like, I
Speaker 2: want to do this. So you grew up in Great
Speaker 2: Britain unit surfing the.
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, I actually I grew up a
Speaker 4: lot in Barbados in the Caribbean, so I was in
Speaker 4: the water, like genuinely before I could walk, I could swim,
Speaker 4: and I have never had a fear of the water
Speaker 4: and was so comfortable there.
Speaker 3: From a really early age.
Speaker 4: I was a big water skier, when I was a kid,
Speaker 4: the surf was on the other side of the island,
Speaker 4: so I never surfed. But I when I moved to California,
Speaker 4: I began, not right away, but probably five or six
Speaker 4: years after I moved here, and I've been surfing a.
Speaker 3: Really long time. I am okay. I'm not even good.
Speaker 4: I'm okay. I can hand on myself. I don't know
Speaker 4: a huge amount about the full moon, but it's special.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I was going to do a little research today about
Speaker 1: because you know, with your astrological sign, and.
Speaker 3: I'm an aquarian, so it's an aquarius. This is an
Speaker 3: aquarium full moon.
Speaker 4: This is why, Yes, that's why I surfed last night
Speaker 4: in the full moon and this morning, and why I'm
Speaker 4: feeling a little bit like maybe I took mushrooms, like
Speaker 4: a little tiny bit high in the most loving, beautiful,
Speaker 4: existential way. I can only think that it is the
Speaker 4: moon because normally I'm a little more harassed, and you.
Speaker 1: Have no fear of being in the water in the
Speaker 1: lat moon is going to make the water so right.
Speaker 4: But we're going to wear glow sticks around our necks,
Speaker 4: but it will be so light you sort of look
Speaker 4: for the sliver of silver along the top of the wave,
Speaker 4: so you can see it lining up when there's a
Speaker 4: set coming and.
Speaker 3: There's a huge amount of letting.
Speaker 4: Go and just trusting, which I don't know, but I
Speaker 4: think that having the opportunity to do that when it
Speaker 4: presents itself, if I can do that, maybe it's like
Speaker 4: mitigated risk.
Speaker 3: But now my heart will be beating really fast.
Speaker 1: You know, you've had such an interesting career. Your life
Speaker 1: is very it's really interesting, and you've got you've been
Speaker 1: through a lot. What was the path that sort of
Speaker 1: kept leading you with a light that's sort of bringing
Speaker 1: you forward to eventually becoming a successful, very successful actors.
Speaker 4: I went to a school and I grew up in
Speaker 4: a place that helped me because I was not an
Speaker 4: easy child.
Speaker 3: I think I was hugely emotional and had.
Speaker 4: A tough time focusing, needed to be physical all the time,
Speaker 4: and this channel of creativity when I discovered that I
Speaker 4: could write, and I had a teacher who supported that
Speaker 4: hugely from the very beginning, from like nine ten years
Speaker 4: old and acting and being in every play and music
Speaker 4: and when I couldn't do math, my math teacher was
Speaker 4: so extraordinary and he said, don't sit here, struggling, You're
Speaker 4: going to suck all the attention from the rest of
Speaker 4: the class. Go to the music school. I play music.
Speaker 4: It's the same part of your brain. And then we'll
Speaker 4: figure this out later.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm lucky you It helped.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Suddenly there were these avenues that all of the
Speaker 4: difficult things could be funneled into. And that's not to
Speaker 4: say that they didn't remain difficult. But you can't stop
Speaker 4: the hurricane, but you can know how to build a shelter.
Speaker 4: So that and I was always aware of what an
Speaker 4: unbelievable gift.
Speaker 3: And opportunity it was.
Speaker 4: No one can prepare you, because nobody really knows what
Speaker 4: devastation lies ahead as well, and the price that you
Speaker 4: will pay, and like what you're willing to sacrifice. And
Speaker 4: in those moments of real turmoil and like huge slumps,
Speaker 4: like in I suppose what is perceived success, those were
Speaker 4: the moments of like incredible growing. And I think because
Speaker 4: of the way that I was raised and my school,
Speaker 4: even when I was in this agony of unemployment or
Speaker 4: a broken heart or whatever, yeah, I knew I could
Speaker 4: find my way out. Making things has always been.
Speaker 3: Part of that.
Speaker 4: Like I don't separate out like writing a book, from
Speaker 4: like having the most incredible role in a TV show
Speaker 4: or a movie, or writing music or performing music, like
Speaker 4: it's all from the same crucible. Finding this tiny little
Speaker 4: place by the beach in Malibu, my little tiny cottage
Speaker 4: and surfing every day became a way of resetting all
Speaker 4: of the other stuff that was asked of me as
Speaker 4: a person with.
Speaker 3: A profile that has to be maintained in a certain way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, your cottage. When you refer to your cottage,
Speaker 2: I found this you're happy place.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's where a lot of people never find it.
Speaker 2: They keep searching for it. Did you know when you
Speaker 2: saw it? Yes.
Speaker 4: I has to get up super early, like you know,
Speaker 4: four fifteen in the morning to be out first light
Speaker 4: surf in the dark of Malibu when there was no
Speaker 4: one out, and then maybe get like twenty or thirty
Speaker 4: minutes in before the guys came out and I couldn't
Speaker 4: get any more waves. And then really early I'd go
Speaker 4: into Malibu and there was still overrun by insane stores
Speaker 4: and oh yeah, change now.
Speaker 3: But it was there used to be a lot of
Speaker 3: mom and power. There was this lovely girl who was
Speaker 3: working in this shop.
Speaker 4: It was like a boutique, and I just went in
Speaker 4: there in my swimsuit and we were chatting, and I said,
Speaker 4: how does someone who doesn't have sixty million dollars that's
Speaker 4: how much they cost back there.
Speaker 3: Now they're double that. What do you do? And she went, oh,
Speaker 3: you can do it. My parents live up the way
Speaker 3: and they live in this place, and you can come up.
Speaker 3: My dad's going up with me. I'll show you.
Speaker 4: We went up to this place, and the minute I
Speaker 4: got out of the car, I know that there is
Speaker 4: a lot of sacred land like in California and Native land,
Speaker 4: and I know there's a lot of power in the land.
Speaker 4: I can only tell you that it's such a house
Speaker 4: that was this place, and I just rented their house.
Speaker 4: They wanted to go on a cruise or something, these
Speaker 4: friends of this girl who worked in the store, and
Speaker 4: I rented their place for a couple months and was
Speaker 4: crying when I left, and just said, look, if you
Speaker 4: ever want to sell this place, or if you ever
Speaker 4: hear of any body that wants to sell their place,
Speaker 4: will you just call me and let me know.
Speaker 3: But at that time, everyone who.
Speaker 4: Lived in this little community I live in, like lived
Speaker 4: there like thirty forty fifty years.
Speaker 3: You didn't sell them. They weren't. Like when I bought
Speaker 3: my place.
Speaker 4: I remember Jay Lenno making fun of me on his
Speaker 4: talk shirt because I live in this place, and I
Speaker 4: just remember laughing and going, sure, this is going to
Speaker 4: keep everybody away. No one's gonna I was like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: it's it sucks, it's terrible, it's not swanky, and it's
Speaker 4: not You're absolutely right, nobody should come and live there.
Speaker 3: And kept them away for a while. And now, oh
Speaker 3: my god, studio heads.
Speaker 4: And directors and it's just bananas.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I guess they're the and I'm sure it makes money,
Speaker 3: and the first are incredibly high.
Speaker 4: But what we've lost is this community that we used
Speaker 4: to have around the actual lumberyard, around the movie theater,
Speaker 4: around the ice cream store.
Speaker 3: There was a skate park. It's now a whole foods like.
Speaker 4: It's so it's it's so difficult if you don't defend
Speaker 4: the things that actually keep your new together societally.
Speaker 3: And I'm a huge believer in community. I've seen what
Speaker 3: it does to people in terms of.
Speaker 4: Rehabilitating individuals and families and keeping us kind of you're
Speaker 4: right connected and that.
Speaker 3: The minute you.
Speaker 4: Get rid of that's when you get so much dissolutions
Speaker 4: and division, and these schisms are created where you're just
Speaker 4: reacting to somebody.
Speaker 3: Because of the amount of money they have, not because of.
Speaker 4: The conversation you had completely, you know, standing outside the coffee.
Speaker 1: Shop, right, completely and inevitably, And what's so horrible about that?
Speaker 1: In Malibu and I've seen it, you know, we would
Speaker 1: go out. I grew up on the East Coast, but
Speaker 1: like in the early seventies, they were all five, five
Speaker 1: and dime shops and it was one big movie theater.
Speaker 2: It was like drive ins and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And over time, of course, that's all gone away, very
Speaker 1: very similar. Prices are exorbitant, can't afford it, The people
Speaker 1: that grew up there can't live there. But you use
Speaker 1: the specialness of that walking across the street going to
Speaker 1: the ice cream parlor, knowing the guy that owns it,
Speaker 1: the multi generational family that.
Speaker 2: Has has that can and and I.
Speaker 1: Think that's a huge issue here that we're having as
Speaker 1: far as community and in America.
Speaker 3: It's a microlo exactly that, right.
Speaker 1: I always keep saying that it has to be a pivot,
Speaker 1: There has to be a pivot. So yes, many, I
Speaker 1: think keep on wanting to call you a million. You
Speaker 1: can so beautiful a million. Dad calls really okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call you a million, so Amelia. So I
Speaker 1: think it comes down now to individual choices that you're
Speaker 1: going to live a life that you're gonna get as
Speaker 1: close to that as you can. It's just you have
Speaker 1: your cottage, your relationship with the people in your life,
Speaker 1: and you just have to we have to just bring
Speaker 1: it into our own lives because it's gone. We can't
Speaker 1: get back because that lumber yard is now that or
Speaker 1: that thing is now condoms.
Speaker 5: Thanks for joining us on Table for two. Our guest,
Speaker 5: Mini Driver, is very busy these days. She has two
Speaker 5: movies premiering in September, an amazing podcast called Many Questions,
Speaker 5: and is playing Queen Elizabeth on the second season of
Speaker 5: The Serpent Queen. I'm curious what true her to playing
Speaker 5: a character from history.
Speaker 1: You're very busy, honestly, I know that The Surper Queen
Speaker 1: dropped season two, Dar, so you have that, but like
Speaker 1: you know, you make reference to wanting to play Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and in your family to that the family play role.
Speaker 2: Was there anything that.
Speaker 3: It was interesting my dad. I mean, yeah, they did.
Speaker 4: And my dad used to play polo with King Charles
Speaker 4: because my dad had a polo teach, so I knew
Speaker 4: him that the polo. I knew this very nice, lovely,
Speaker 4: polite gentleman who I knew was somebody important. The royal
Speaker 4: family is very present in the UK, like when you're
Speaker 4: growing up, and no matter if your dad plays a
Speaker 4: rarefied sport with the future King of England, you were
Speaker 4: aware of them all the time, And certainly with Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: I remember when we learned about her in school when
Speaker 4: I was around seven or eight years old. I couldn't
Speaker 4: believe that we were talking about a queen who was
Speaker 4: so long ago. And I remember my teacher. I was like,
Speaker 4: why are we still talking about her? And she was like,
Speaker 4: I know, right, because she's that powerful and that cool.
Speaker 4: And I became a little bit obsessed with her.
Speaker 2: Right, that's some way to look at it. Why are
Speaker 2: we still talking about her? And then you're teaching me
Speaker 2: like can you believe?
Speaker 4: By the way, that was essentially what my English teachers
Speaker 4: said about Shakespeare when it was always on the curriculum
Speaker 4: for all of our exams.
Speaker 3: I was like, why is it always Shakespeare? Why is
Speaker 3: it not you.
Speaker 4: Know, Ben Johnson, why are him? And he was like,
Speaker 4: because he's so fucking good.
Speaker 3: There's nobody better. That's why.
Speaker 2: What did you love about playing? Like when you got
Speaker 2: the opportunity to play.
Speaker 4: Her, I just love the way they said. Justin Hayes
Speaker 4: honestly is for me, one of the great writers working today.
Speaker 4: He is a genius writer. And his take on Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: on this idea of these powerful women. Have to remember
Speaker 4: that at that period in history, women couldn't even own
Speaker 4: own anything, not just property.
Speaker 2: They couldn't in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 4: Exactly, it's banana. It's like the because women themselves were chattel.
Speaker 4: So first of all, there's like this whole female experience,
Speaker 4: and then you suddenly have these queens. You have Captain
Speaker 4: de Medici in France and you have Queen Elizabeth in England,
Speaker 4: and they were friends over letters, even though apparently they
Speaker 4: never met, but we don't know for sure. There was
Speaker 4: something about the unicornness of a woman being in that
Speaker 4: position and the fact that she had the longest reign
Speaker 4: until Elizabeth. Second, how she did that? Like who that
Speaker 4: person is? What you have to do, and the idea
Speaker 4: that she wasn't a sexual creature, the idea that she
Speaker 4: wasn't you know who this woman was. I've started to
Speaker 4: become really interested in who the woman is behind the crown,
Speaker 4: because we all know the crown is a thing, it's
Speaker 4: an entity, it's an emblem, and it's a duty, and
Speaker 4: it's a facade. So we became really interested in what
Speaker 4: was behind that, and Justin Haige was really interested in
Speaker 4: exploring what the public face of her looked like and
Speaker 4: then starting to get into what the woman behind that was.
Speaker 4: And I wish I could have done it for a
Speaker 4: lot longer because I feel like we were just getting
Speaker 4: started to really start seeing. She has this great speech
Speaker 4: at the end of one of the scenes with Captain
Speaker 4: Medicci where she's I'm paraphrasing, but she's like, look, we
Speaker 4: are brands, right. I must pose as a virgin and
Speaker 4: you as a witch to get what we want.
Speaker 3: This is just fucking business. This is how it is.
Speaker 2: It's amazing awareness of that.
Speaker 4: Then, yeah, of course there was stuff going on behind
Speaker 4: the scenes.
Speaker 3: Of course there was.
Speaker 4: It really is, and this idea that it's also persisted,
Speaker 4: the idea that you can't have sex unless you're married.
Speaker 4: Because she never got married, she must have been a
Speaker 4: virgin queen. It's no So I love evolving that idea.
Speaker 4: I love the exploration of Elizabeth as a woman, and
Speaker 4: I know it can only be.
Speaker 3: Imagined because we don't know.
Speaker 2: Pivoting.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about your podcast because I think
Speaker 1: it's such a joy to listen to you if you're
Speaker 1: not listening to Mini's podcast. You've picked seven questions that
Speaker 1: you've consistently asked your guests on your show.
Speaker 2: So one is how do you pick a guest?
Speaker 1: And then has there been a consistent sort of human
Speaker 1: behavior that you've seen that we share even though we're
Speaker 1: all different.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, essentially that what you said, because what I
Speaker 4: like is the.
Speaker 3: The idea if you create.
Speaker 4: A sort of constricted environment, which the same seven questions
Speaker 4: is a particular discipline. So what that does is it
Speaker 4: it makes people feel safe, and then it also makes
Speaker 4: them feel like they're in control. I've noticed is the
Speaker 4: thing amount of people is. That's a really good place
Speaker 4: to begin from. But those questions, I realized they're just
Speaker 4: tinder to ignite that the way someone thinks about the world,
Speaker 4: And so there's so much that's revealed. But it's a
Speaker 4: great place to begin because people feel I think it's
Speaker 4: very manageable, which is why they they've had had some.
Speaker 3: Really truly, because it doesn't.
Speaker 4: Matter how much somebody prepares your selfdom seeps out. So
Speaker 4: someone will answer their question and then I'll ask a
Speaker 4: follow up and then suddenly.
Speaker 3: All is revealed.
Speaker 4: Or some people don't like to see the questions beforehand,
Speaker 4: and I'll ask a question and out will bubble. This
Speaker 4: amazing response has been triggered by something that happened that
Speaker 4: very day.
Speaker 3: But the essential idea of.
Speaker 4: The show I think makes people feel it's completely manageable.
Speaker 4: I don't have to sit there and they're not going
Speaker 4: to ask me about my love life. They're not going
Speaker 4: to ask me about this there or the other.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I guess I always felt Q and as I loved
Speaker 4: doing those kind of interviews, I was like, send me
Speaker 4: a set of questions that I can sit and think back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason that I why I launched a lunch that's
Speaker 1: we're in person.
Speaker 2: It's because I feel like because it's basically the same thing.
Speaker 1: There's a romance in a meal, there's a intimacy with
Speaker 1: eye contact, and inevitably I might definitely know, like, oh
Speaker 1: I want to hear about your films coming out in Toronto.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna throw out the Serpent Queens, you know, season two.
Speaker 2: You know you have put the professional pieces of you.
Speaker 1: But inevitably we are talking about other things because we
Speaker 1: have taken the time to connect is to humans for
Speaker 1: this moment, and I think that's things are revealed that
Speaker 1: are beautiful or kind or emotional, and that's really that's
Speaker 1: all we got.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 1: You've had such a career and if you're looking at
Speaker 1: Famelia now looking back, how have you navigated this decade
Speaker 1: of our life? I happened things are very important and
Speaker 1: an incredible decade.
Speaker 4: It is like the big And I always used to
Speaker 4: think whenever I would hear people talking about their fifties,
Speaker 4: I always felt like, oh, yeah, you're just trying to
Speaker 4: spin being.
Speaker 3: A yeah yeah, yeah yeah, or your wisdom.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 3: And I really did think that in my thirties and
Speaker 3: actually maybe even my forties. And the reality is.
Speaker 4: I felt like it is the most extraordinarily clarifying moment.
Speaker 4: All of the wisdom, all the threads that I could
Speaker 4: never quite weave together. I feel like I actually am.
Speaker 4: I'm braiding myself, I am weaving them. I was constantly
Speaker 4: grabbing for different bits and modalities and this thing and
Speaker 4: is it this thing, and mastering some of it and
Speaker 4: not mastering other bits. And suddenly now it's like I
Speaker 4: could see it all so much clearer. Stuff that just
Speaker 4: doesn't matter, which is really what we're talking about completely.
Speaker 4: It's the stuff that you chased and kept chasing because
Speaker 4: you either were told it was important, or that other
Speaker 4: people were telling you it was important, or you were
Speaker 4: watching other people do that, and so you went along
Speaker 4: with it. And now I don't know if it's just
Speaker 4: a function of just being tired and my energy is
Speaker 4: for the things I really wanted because.
Speaker 3: I don't have as much as I use.
Speaker 2: I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I think there is the sort of laser focus and
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2: I know what I want to do. And we've gone.
Speaker 1: Through the twenties and thirties and forties, and each one
Speaker 1: is you can see say.
Speaker 3: They're all beautiful, and they all have.
Speaker 1: That completely and necessarily to get to messiness or the
Speaker 1: loves of the twenties and the youth and all that
Speaker 1: to lead you to your thirties to begin your We
Speaker 1: both had children in our forties.
Speaker 2: I believe.
Speaker 1: The podcast is amazing because when you listen to you
Speaker 1: answer and you share, which is also very beautiful, which
Speaker 1: I love, because you make it's a conversation. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm going to ask you questions and you're just
Speaker 1: gonna I really did love the Debbie Harry one. She's
Speaker 1: something else and there was something about her too when
Speaker 1: she answered the questions. I was almost like a little
Speaker 1: intimidated by actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You asked me. Okay, I guess that's all answer.
Speaker 3: By the way, I've really learned that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes someone's no is it's revealing about them as a person,
Speaker 4: and they they should be allowed to have that.
Speaker 3: So when someone just goes yeah.
Speaker 4: Or no to a question that I've asked, instead of
Speaker 4: getting flustered, I now start to chuckle, going.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, all right, that's okay. I wonder what it
Speaker 3: is around that.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I'll even ask and go, that was really definitive,
Speaker 4: that no, or that yeah was really definitive.
Speaker 3: And it's often about.
Speaker 4: Quick thinking and going is that speaking to a larger
Speaker 4: issue around whatever it is that they've said no or
Speaker 4: yes to you don't judge someone on their reactions, which
Speaker 4: is very difficult to do on a podcast.
Speaker 3: I can do it. I'm just gonna I'm gonna listen if.
Speaker 1: It's over, if it's in it's completion, which is another
Speaker 1: thing when you like, have you found that in life?
Speaker 1: We have all these ideas that things are going to
Speaker 1: be forever and then they end, whether it's whether it's
Speaker 1: that was it's forever.
Speaker 2: I did think everything was forever. I gotta tell you
Speaker 2: you do. I did if it was like if you
Speaker 2: fell in.
Speaker 3: Love, it was going to be you were going to
Speaker 3: be with them forever?
Speaker 1: And then did you When I was in my twenties,
Speaker 1: ually like year one was great, Year two.
Speaker 2: Was like how do I get out of this?
Speaker 4: And then terrible?
Speaker 2: How did you say you have the same sort of rhythm?
Speaker 4: I list, Yeah, Honestly, this is the longest relationship I've
Speaker 4: ever been in and we're like in year six. So
Speaker 4: he's the greatest, And I'm so funny because that's the
Speaker 4: other thing that I think I realized or again using
Speaker 4: that word clarified in my book, which was all of
Speaker 4: those relationships that in quotes didn't work out, they were
Speaker 4: a version of life working out. It's just not the
Speaker 4: bells and whistles version of romance and love that I
Speaker 4: had been sold as a kid, which is that you're
Speaker 4: with someone, they love you, then you're going to get married,
Speaker 4: you and have kids.
Speaker 3: It's going to all work out, for sure.
Speaker 4: It took a long time for me to let go
Speaker 4: of that expectation that this person had to be the one.
Speaker 2: Well, I also think each one of those brings you
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, because without any of all of that, without
Speaker 1: any of all the years that we've lived. Like someone
Speaker 1: once said, I'm fifty eight years old, but still there's
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old is still in me.
Speaker 2: That piece of you doesn't go all the way.
Speaker 3: No, exactly.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Table for two. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 5: Many released her memoir Managing Expectations. The essays in the
Speaker 5: book are both funny and honest, and I'm curious how
Speaker 5: she went about the writing process.
Speaker 1: And just so you know, Minnie's book is called Managing Expectations,
Speaker 1: a memoir and essays, and it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: What was that process? And that's not easy, that's a
Speaker 2: very emotional thing to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, definitely, it was a function. The actually getting
Speaker 4: it done was a function of COVID, you know, on
Speaker 4: like day three, so like March fifteenth or sixteenth, man Jason,
Speaker 4: who is a very old friend of mine in addition
Speaker 4: to being my manager, he called me.
Speaker 3: And he was like this, you got all this time.
Speaker 3: What are you going to do?
Speaker 4: I started the podcast and he said, if you were
Speaker 4: going to write a book, what would it look like?
Speaker 3: So I wrote as if he were a.
Speaker 4: Teacher at my school giving me an assignment. We talked
Speaker 4: about it at dinner my son, Addison, my boyfriend, and
Speaker 4: me that night and I was like, okay, so I
Speaker 4: want to write a book, and my son went, well,
Speaker 4: it would be your stories. Because he's now lived long
Speaker 4: enough to see that there is very little I love
Speaker 4: more than telling stories. And my favorite thing is telling
Speaker 4: stories that I know people have heard before, but telling
Speaker 4: them again in a different way and getting a new
Speaker 4: laugh out of them.
Speaker 3: I find that incredibly satisfying.
Speaker 4: The next day, I went, okay, I'm just going to
Speaker 4: start with the stories that I maybe three stories that
Speaker 4: I know I've told that are so hardwired into my life.
Speaker 3: And I began there. I wrote this proposal of what
Speaker 3: these stories might look like. And we then went out
Speaker 3: and sold.
Speaker 4: I already said, look at this is not going to
Speaker 4: be a tell or it was never going to be
Speaker 4: a celebrity memoir. So then I started with these stories.
Speaker 4: And when we sold the book and I then had
Speaker 4: to write them, what you realize is that in telling
Speaker 4: the stories, you're actually going back and not just telling them,
Speaker 4: but you're healing the bits that were really hard because
Speaker 4: I didn't realize how tragic bits of my stories were,
Speaker 4: like being put on an aeroplane when I was eleven
Speaker 4: years old because I had a fight with my dad.
Speaker 4: When I was writing it, I was like, Jesus Christ,
Speaker 4: this is actually awful and painful.
Speaker 3: But there was so much humor in it as well.
Speaker 1: Telling and we have a story like that, we're at
Speaker 1: eleven years old, you're traveling alone, and you can look
Speaker 1: at it and you can see the humor in it,
Speaker 1: but you can also see, well, like, this is insane.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was insane. It was and devastating, but it was.
Speaker 4: You then start going that created a level of independence
Speaker 4: and the fact that everything was fine and I was fine,
Speaker 4: and I did go on this bizarre adventure that was
Speaker 4: part of the infrastructure of how I think I moved
Speaker 4: to Hollywood when I was twenty five years twenty four
Speaker 4: years old. I could move seven thousand miles away from home,
Speaker 4: still loving my family and not wanting to and have
Speaker 4: the best time, knowing no one.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, I think that all that.
Speaker 1: Develops the strength of character that brings you into the room,
Speaker 1: because you also chose a very tough profession and you
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned you know, goodwill hunting and what
Speaker 1: that did, and.
Speaker 2: That was that's become.
Speaker 1: This was not only an incredible movie where it came out,
Speaker 1: but it's still amazing.
Speaker 2: It's a cult classic. It's an amazing film that you did.
Speaker 1: Some movies just they age out, you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Movie when I saw but it's just not other, but
Speaker 2: definitely that movie no matter what age you are.
Speaker 3: Now, we made a classic. And it's very rare to
Speaker 3: make those kinds of films. It's very difficult to keep
Speaker 3: making good films.
Speaker 4: So much has to come into alignment for movies to
Speaker 4: be good on all the levels. Received well, I have
Speaker 4: a timeless quality, great performances, wonderful time on set.
Speaker 3: It was the happiest experience shooting that movie.
Speaker 4: The movie has touched people for now twenty five years
Speaker 4: or whatever it's been like there was. That's very special,
Speaker 4: and it's the very beginning of these two extraordinary careers
Speaker 4: of Matt and Ben. This beautiful performance of an icon
Speaker 4: in Robin Williams.
Speaker 3: Everyone who is in it, everyone, but it was very lowcly.
Speaker 4: I mean turn.
Speaker 2: So speaking of movies, so you have two films that
Speaker 2: are going to be in the film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very different films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: One is this extraordinary film that stars Alusia Vikander and
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel.
Speaker 3: It's a kind of dystopian future where if you want.
Speaker 4: To have a child, you have to be assessed by
Speaker 4: an assessor. It's called the Assessment, and Elusivikanda plays the
Speaker 4: assessor and it is this extraordinary journey into I think,
Speaker 4: what it means to be a parent or what it
Speaker 4: means to want to have a child, but set against
Speaker 4: in a very Alex Garland way in a way, this
Speaker 4: dystopian idea of the future. We all take this drug
Speaker 4: to remain looking young called synoxin, and I think I'm
Speaker 4: one hundred and eighty three years old in it, but
Speaker 4: like I look like I do. And it's pretty stark
Speaker 4: and it's it's just so brilliant. This amazing French female
Speaker 4: director is her first film she's called Flur fourteen amazing.
Speaker 4: And then the other movie same brilliant writers, brilliant acting.
Speaker 4: But it's a Edward Burns movie. I mean, Eddie's been
Speaker 4: making movies for thirty years now. I think it's almost
Speaker 4: the Brothers mcmullon, I think is thirty years in January.
Speaker 1: Wow, I forgot about that sum Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so that is this movie that we made, which
Speaker 4: is an ensemble piece with Patrick Wilson, Julianna Marguley's.
Speaker 3: Benjamin Bratt, Rishian Mare, Campbell, Scott Eddie.
Speaker 4: Amazing, amazing and a very sort of adult grown up
Speaker 4: movie about relationships.
Speaker 2: What do you love about me?
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
Speaker 4: Honestly, from like the cables snaking across the floor to
Speaker 4: the kind of harod ads with their ear pieces in.
Speaker 3: The quiet on set, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: but it feels like home. It's this idea of like.
Speaker 4: You're playing you're literally playing make believe and everyone's taking
Speaker 4: it really seriously and you know that it's going to
Speaker 4: be metabolized in a way that makes people feel a
Speaker 4: whole other thing, Like, it's such a beautiful con for
Speaker 4: people to be to enjoy themselves watching you play that.
Speaker 3: They're called movies not because it's a moving image, but
Speaker 3: because they move people, They move you.
Speaker 4: And you get to be like a conduit for all
Speaker 4: the things that people they don't want to feel, those
Speaker 4: big emotions in their life, they want to.
Speaker 3: Watch you do that.
Speaker 4: And particularly if you don't find that difficult to do.
Speaker 4: I mean, perhaps it's difficult to do well.
Speaker 2: No, I think it is. I think you have to
Speaker 2: be talented like yourself. Not everyone can do it, and
Speaker 2: a lot of things have to come together.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's funny. I don't know what is that.
Speaker 4: I know certain things that make a great actor in
Speaker 4: my opinion, but there is this kind of special there
Speaker 4: is this special something that is really unquantifiable that certain
Speaker 4: actors have.
Speaker 3: I've been actually looking recently.
Speaker 4: I've been watching movies and thinking about that, and watching
Speaker 4: movies with people that.
Speaker 2: I just I was about to ask, who are the
Speaker 2: people that.
Speaker 4: So Isabel Lupere is my I can watch Emma Stone
Speaker 4: all day long, Michael Fassbender, Alicia the Canada, Sean Penn
Speaker 4: and Dan day lewis probably being the I think he
Speaker 4: was the king.
Speaker 3: Of all of them. I love watching them. I actually love.
Speaker 4: Watching Margot Robbie work because it's also she's such a
Speaker 4: fine actress, and it's like, in a way, it's like,
Speaker 4: don't be taken in by her.
Speaker 3: Beautiful she is.
Speaker 4: She is so finely tuned to emotion, and she holds
Speaker 4: her space so brilliantly and doesn't incroach on other people's
Speaker 4: There's something incredibly delicate and very powerful about that.
Speaker 2: I agree she has a very special quality.
Speaker 3: I think she's magical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she really is.
Speaker 1: I've had such a great time having much of you,
Speaker 1: and there's so many things.
Speaker 2: If you've pulled up a chair with.
Speaker 1: Missing me driver, I'm just staring at you because you're
Speaker 1: you're mesmerizing, just so you know, you're mesmerizing you and
Speaker 1: you're a doer and you and I can feel it.
Speaker 1: You've inspired me today, which is I think right is
Speaker 1: all about thank you for taking the time wow today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4: It was really delicious and it was really lovely talking
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you everyone, Thank you for falling up
Speaker 1: at chair and have a great dead.
Speaker 2: Thank you for pulling up a chair.
Speaker 6: I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
Speaker 6: a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
Speaker 6: friend and rate and review us on Apple podcast. Table
Speaker 6: for two with Bruce Bozzi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
Speaker 6: three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Speaker 6: Bosi and Nathan King. Our supervising producer Dylan Fagan. Our
Speaker 6: editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias. Table
Speaker 6: for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan. Our
Speaker 6: sound engineers are Meel B. Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor.
Speaker 2: And Jesse Funk. Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our
Speaker 2: talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 5: Table for Two's social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special
Speaker 5: thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer,
Speaker 5: Alison Kanter, Graber, Barbara Jen, Jeff Klein, and the staff.
Speaker 1: At the Tower Bar in the world famous Sunset Tower Hotel.
Speaker 5: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,
Speaker 5: or we'rever you listen to your favorite shows