“Emily in Paris” Star Minnie Driver

Air Date: Tuesday, December 9^th 

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Photo Credit: The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean

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Minnie Driver on How Letting Go of the Idea of Finding A Partner Led Her to Love After a Life Changing Breakup

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/URLrKbwod5Js
Drew: If you don't mind, I would love to get some life advice from you.

Minnie: Oh sure, hand it out like candy. Cause I've got it all figured out.

Drew: Well, I mean, I think you have figured something out that I have yet to, which is, is it true that at a certain point you had had a relationship that you then maybe exited and did a big sort of ceremonial letting go, or what was that experience like? Because it led to something and there is where my question lies.

Minnie: So it was a really bad breakup, the kind that I don't know, I feel like most people experience one in their life. Awful and painful and destroyed me and I was, the interesting thing, what came out of the ashes of that relationship was, not in an angry, bitter, resentful way, I don't need anybody else, but rather if no one else ever showed up, it is completely and utterly fine because I'm so sick of that being the litmus test for the happiness in my life, the idea of being with someone else. I don't have to, I'm going to love my child, I'm gonna love my friends, I'm gonna live my life, I'm gonna do my thing, and if somebody shows up, great, and if they don't, also great. And you know, someone showed up who was genuinely a rebound, and I made it very clear, I was like you're excellent, you're very handsome and you're very clever, and this is going absolutely nowhere. Because I'm ruined in that department and I also have no interest in ever falling in love with anyone ever again. And then of course, you know, we've been together for 7 years. He’s amazing. His name is Addison, he was like, great, sure, he was like, he was so understanding of the fact that he was gonna be a rebound.

Drew: What I have discerned and surmised from what you've said is, I think the greatest life advice that one can make a decision about, and I do think that at 50 I've come to realize it's all choice. It is our reaction, it is our choice and the choice that you made so eloquently, so articulately, so empowered. To say I don't want my happiness to rely on this, I want to be happy regardless.

Minnie: I want to live regardless. It's done so quickly. This notion of waiting around for some external, either experience or person to show up to make your life better or happier is nonsense. You have it’s over in a flash. We have to just love every single second, every second of it, whether you're with someone or not. We do, we have to.

Minnie Driver on Son Henry Being a Surprise After Being Told She Couldn’t Have Kids and How She Communicates with Him

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/lC5oP2SY2wtY
Drew: You have a son.

Minnie: I do.

Drew: Henry, 17.

Minnie: He is 17, he's just 17.

Drew: Did you know that you wanted to be a mom? Did you, was that like a plan for you?

Minnie: So here's the thing, I really was told that I couldn't have kids when I was very young.

Drew: How come?

Minnie: Honestly, a bogus doctor, I think, and he just said it would be very hard for me to have children.

because of the shape of my uterus, and I just never got pregnant, and Henry was, an accident, I suppose. And then when I had him, it was the greatest, it has been the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. And he is the greatest person I've ever known, like truly the greatest person I've ever known, and has never given me a moment's trouble, largely I think because when he was a baby and I was, it was just him and I in the house, and I think we both burst into tears at the same time, realizing what a terrible predicament we found ourselves in, which was he was like, oh my God, you're it, and I was like, oh my God, you're it. And then he, you figure, we figured out our shorthand of how to communicate with each other, and I always found that these neutral spaces with a child are the best place to have conversations, to connect, for them to download. We were always, it would always be when we were in a car, if we were driving, where there's no like direct eye contact and you're just listening, and you're in a liminal space because you're between two places, you're not in your home or in someone else's home or in the park, you're in, I don't know, this non-space in a car. Our conversations and the way that we communicated, it was, that's where I would listen. And I learnt young, in, I mean, in our, in our relationship, to not try and fix things, but rather to bear witness to him and his experience, and oftentimes those things would pass like weather if he just felt hurt. If I could just speak to him, if I could just listen to what he said. And then he could kind of let it go, but we want to fix things as mums. We want to fix everything, we want to make it OK, we want to look for solutions, and I think oftentimes it's really good for us just to listen to them and let them tell the story of what's of what the problem is.