While Minnie Driver found critical success for her role in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, there’s one piece of love life advice she wishes she knew at the time.
“Don’t date actors,” she shared on the Wednesday, June 12, episode of Today, prompting lots of laughter from cohosts Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer and guest host Jill Martin Brooks. “But I had the best time doing it. But I would tell her, ‘Honey, find a nice plumber. Find an electrician. Find someone who just wants to stay home and support you.’”
Driver, 54, famously dated Matt Damon after starring as love interests in Good Will Hunting, but Damon, now 53, announced he was “single” during a 1998 talk show interview. Driver and Damon reunited at the Oscars two months after their split, where they were nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actor, respectively.
Driver has also been romantically connected to a number of famous faces over the years, including Harrison Ford, David Duchovny, Josh Brolin, John Cusak and David Schwimmer.
While Driver’s comment was not directly aimed at her relationship with Damon, she was shown a clip of herself acting alongside her ex on Today. “Oh, bless her sweet heart. I love her so much,” she said of her younger self. “I wish she knew all of the stuff I know now.”
Driver went on to note that despite her and Damon’s messy breakup, she had “only love” looking back at the film they made together. “It was the most extraordinary moment in my life,” she explained. “Nothing but love for all of those men — Robin [Williams], Ben [Affleck], Gus [Van Sant], Jean-Yves Escoffier, who was the amazing cinematographer, Elliott Smith, who wrote the songs, Danny Elfman, who wrote the score. It lives in me forever. Forever and ever.”
That being said, Driver noted she’s not normally one to revisit her past work. “I don’t rewatch anything. I really, really don’t,” she stated. “I’ll tell you what I do watch. I do watch Ella Enchanted with [the] little girls in my life. I find I’m so judgmental.”
Driver welcomed her son Henry, 15, with her ex Timothy J. Lea and has been in a long-term relationship with writer and filmmaker Addison O’Dea since 2019. Damon, for his part, wed Luciana Barroso in 2005, and the couple share four daughters.
Driver opened up about her split from Damon earlier this year, recalling how he already had a new girlfriend by the time of the 1998 Oscars. “I was heartbroken,” she said during a March episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show. “But anyone who’s been heartbroken can understand the last thing you want is everybody having a window in on that.”
Driver also said she wishes she could have told her former self, “‘Honey, it’s cool. You can celebrate and life’s going to be great and beautiful and hard and amazing and you’re going to love again. It’ll be fine.’”
She added: “Listen, our heartbreak is private and then if you’re an actress, it can be very public, so maybe just all of us relating to each other a bit more as humans and that we have these similar experiences through different lenses.”
