Minnie Driver: Men are like excited labrador puppies... they're very simple creatures who need to be fed, walked and given lots of love

British actress said three dogs is best training for relationships

Happily single 44-year-old has dated Matt Damon and Josh Brolin

Added she is body confident despite Twitter abuse after bikini photo

Confident: Minnie's made it in Hollywood and she is happy in her life at the moment

Owning huge, over-excitable labrador puppies was all it took to teach Minnie Driver how to control the men in her life.



Training both requires the same skills says Driver, the British actress who captivated Hollywood in films such as Good Will Hunting.

Forget over-analysing, says the Oscar-nominated star, who insists it is the trait in women men find most difficult to deal with.

The solution is much more simple. ‘The best training I ever received in my understanding of boys – and of grown men, too – was having labradors,’ she says. ‘Dogs need three things. They need to run a lot, to be fed a lot, to be loved and taken care of a lot – and that’s it. If you can cover those three bases, you’re good to go.

‘We women tend to forget that and try to over-complicate relationships with men, which we should never do because they are very simple creatures – not simple as in stupid, but simple in the best way, meaning straightforward and pragmatic.

‘Boys are simple and lovely and uncomplicated, and we women do best when we remember that.’

It’s fair to say Driver knows what she is talking about, even though it has been a lesson learned a little late in life.

Happily single at the moment, she has dated a host of stars and her background is littered with broken relationships. Matt Damon once famously ditched her ‘live’ on the Oprah Winfrey TV show, and her love affair with Josh Brolin, to whom she was engaged, ended in acrimony when his stepmother, Barbra Streisand, commandeered the couple’s wedding plans.

These days the only men in Driver’s life are her son Henry, five, and his father, TV producer Timothy Lea. Although she and Lea are no longer romantically involved, they live close to each other near Universal Studios in Hollywood, and Henry divides his time between them.

And while some women long for a daughter to play dolls and dress up with, Minnie says she can think of little worse.

‘I’m so grateful I don’t have a girl because when I was young I put my parents through hell. I was conniving, manipulative, emotionally challenged – you name it.’

But for all that, she is proud of how her parents brought her up and is determined to ensure Henry grows with the same values and manners her mother instilled in the young Driver.

Table manners, she says, were drilled into her as a child.

Happily single at the moment, she has dated a host of stars, including Matt Damon who ditched her on Oprah

Her understanding of men was partly informed by her love affair with Josh Brolin, to whom she was engaged. It ended in acrimony when his stepmother, Barbra Streisand, commandeered their wedding plans

That is why she is equally insistent Henry never misbehaves at the table. ‘I think we English eat more politely than Americans, so I insist that he eats nicely,’ she says. ‘I’m generally a very relaxed parent in that he can wear what he wants and he knows that he’s entitled to his own opinion about lots of things.

‘But I am a stickler for good manners when he’s around food. His American friends have a burger in hand, they’re dropping ketchup all over the furniture, eating with their mouths open, sometimes standing on a chair, and I don’t put up with that with Henry.’

As a result, she says, people are starting to notice his excellent table manners.





‘Boys are simple and lovely and uncomplicated, and we women do best when we remember that’

‘My friends’ kids are sent to my house to learn how to eat! Their parents say, “Can you make my kid have good manners like Henry?” I say, “Sure, send them round here to dinner.”



'I think British parents have to be stricter than Californians about things like this because when you’re living inside so much as we do in Britain you have to learn to behave.

‘You don’t have as much space, you can’t let the kids go and work all their energy out outside and when you sit down to eat you’re inside the house, not in the garden.

‘So I suppose we have the rain to thank for our good manners!’

Now 44, Driver is fast approaching the dangerous age when actresses begin to count their wrinkles and bemoan their sagging bodies.

Not that Driver has much to worry about on that score.

Just last year she was pictured in the Caribbean looking lean and toned in a tiny bikini.

Relaxing: Minnie received an onslaught of criticism about her body when this image emerged of her in the Caribbean

Body confident: She responded by posing naked for Allure Magazine, adding she is healthy and happy

And when Twitter trolls posted unpleasant comments about her fabulous figure, Driver retaliated by posting a nude photograph of herself.

‘I was surprised by that bullying – it came out of nowhere and I thought it was weird,’ she says.

‘But if you’re going to start bullying people who are confident and OK with themselves, then those comments reflect more on the crazies sitting behind their computers doing that stuff, than on me.

‘I have a very good body image, and always have had.’

And neither is she afraid to allow her body to suffer for her art. For her first film, Circle Of Friends, she happily piled on 2st.

‘I have always felt good about the shape I am in. I’m very healthy – a lot healthier than a lot of younger actresses that I come across these days who seem to feel a huge lot of pressure to stay very slim indeed.’

Driver is currently starring in About A Boy, a US TV series based on Nick Hornby’s novel.

‘These days, I’m just happy to be still working and I’m grateful that I’m still here and I’m healthy and that I’m not crazy.