Minnie Driver has said returning to Ireland to film her latest project gave her a “sense of coming home”.
The actress, 51, won critical praise for her role as Bernadette (Benny) Hogan in the 1995 film Circle Of Friends, which was based on the novel of the same name by acclaimed Irish author Maeve Binchy.
She now stars in the second series of Amazon Prime’s Modern Love, playing the character of Stephanie Curran, a remarried widow whose vintage Triumph car is her last link to her late husband.
All you need is love, in all its forms. #ModernLove Season 2 premieres August 13 only on @primevideo. pic.twitter.com/Ilru1zlz9O
— Modern Love (@modernlovetv) July 15, 2021
She said of filming the series, which is based on the weekly column published in The New York Times: “I love Ireland, I think it must be that there’s something there for me.
“That it is a cornerstone of my life because it has been that way every single time I set foot there.
“I feel it’s a sense of coming home, but it’s really just a sense of connection.”
She also said that her two weeks’ solo quarantine before filming started was filled with running through the fields and driving in the Wicklow mountains, which she described as “one of the happiest times”.
“I mean it’s so evocative of a time that I was so happy, and that’s never changed,” she added.
Driver also spoke of how she related to the sentimentality towards objects of her character after the loss of her mother this year.
She said: “My mum died this year and I have a lot of really beautiful memories that are objects of hers, and I could never let them go.”
The show, which has previously starred Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Andy Garcia and Dev Patel, is written and directed by John Carney.
Driver also discussed how she had a “very different emotional calibration” to Carney about the character, but she feels like she is a better actor for exploring his vision.
She said: “I was really glad to sort of put my stuff down and do what he wanted in order to try and to expand and to grow a bit.
“I knew that he is brilliant, you know, he’s a creative being, which is why I trusted when he had a different way of looking at this.
“I think not seeing eye-to-eye with somebody creatively is a good thing, it’s how you create.”
Driver was previously Oscar-nominated for her role as Skylar in Good Will Hunting and Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated for her role as Dahlia Malloy in the TV series The Riches about a family of Irish Travellers.
Modern Love season two launches on Prime Video on August 13.
