Minnie Driver is perfection in the part of a junky ex-con and mother of gypsy grifters in the new hit FX series “The Riches”, trading her British accent for a Deep South redneck twang and her luscious hair for cornrows.
"There are roles where you think if you don't get them, well, it won't really change my life," Driver said. "Then there are roles where you think, you know what, it will kill me if someone else gets this role... No, that's not even it. It's more like, there was no way anyone else was getting this part."
Driver relishes how multi-dimensionally her character in "The Riches" is written: “She is completely and utterly unpredictable. She is an addict. She is ravaged. She loves her family, but she would kill them if they did anything wrong".
“But I feel like she could also walk away from this family at a drop of a hat. That’s the unpredictable quality within her. She is very, very dark and very, very funny. She has no filter.
“She would say things I would never say because I am an articulate, well-brought-up English girl. Yet she feels as natural to me as anything I have played.”
In the show, her gypsy family accidentally kills a wealthy couple named Rich. Then she and her husband (played by British comedian Eddie Izzard, the show’s executive producer) assume the dead couple’s identity and live in the Riches' fabulous home. Each week, viewers wonder whether the Malloys will be unmasked as not being the Riches.
Born in England, Driver grew up in a close-knit, free-thinking family. “My father was a Bohemian conservative, and my mother was a full-blown artistic, wonderful hippie,” she says. “It was a small family, but it got bigger as my parents had children with other people.”
She moved to Hollywood in 1997, after doing dozens of short TV stints in the UK. The feature film “Grosse Pointe Blank” was her first major role in the US. She was nominated for an outstanding supporting actress Academy Award for the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting.”
Driver nixed an idea of doing a “Will & Grace” spinoff, featuring her as the wildly inappropriate British tart Lorraine Finster. However, “The Riches” script lured her to TV in ways nothing else has. “It was the best thing I had read, film or otherwise,” she says.
She met with the producers, and “it was like some weird arranged marriage,” full of initial small talk. But when they started talking about her character, they clicked immediately. “They take my ideas and listen to them,” she says. “It’s unlike a lot of television I have done. ... It’s a wonderful, free experience, and I feel comfortable here.”
At 37, she’s still a free spirit who loves to surf in Southern California. She has turned down high-profile acting roles just so she can record a small acoustic CD in Nashville.
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