Minnie Driver is looking back at the ’90s.
The actress, 54, revealed that her 1997 action comedy movie “Grosse Pointe Blank” was “revolutionary” to her.
On Wednesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s “This Life of Mine with James Corden,” Driver confessed that the project was almost completely improvised because the original script was “disastrous.”
“Grosse Pointe Blank” stars John Cusack as a hitman who returns home for his 10-year high school reunion and reconnects with the ex-girlfriend (Driver) he still has feelings for.
“We were making [“Grosse Pointe Blank”] and the script isn’t really that good, and everyone knows the script isn’t really that good, but it’s this great idea,” she told Corden. “So we shot a couple of days and I remember it wasn’t really that it was disastrous, but it just wasn’t funny.”
The leads then decided to make a change.
“So [Cusack] went to Joe Roth, who was then head of Disney, and said, ‘Can we just improvise? Will you just give us a week and watch the dailies and tell me if you don’t think that it’s great?’ And George Armitage, who was the director, bless his heart, was kind of forced to go along with that.”
In a 2016 interview, Armitage admitted as much, calling the movie “collaborative” before adding, “We had everybody improvising. We shot so much film on that movie. Everybody was so into what they were doing.”
As Driver put it, “We improved the whole thing.”
“It felt like we were going to go up in flames every single day,” the “Speechless” star recalled.
Despite the shaky start, the film was well-received by critics, and the comedy’s dark humor led the project to gain a cult following in the years since.
Driver credited the decision to improvise with making the film “funnier and funnier and more and more sort of rooted in the insanity of the story.”
“The Assessment” alum also took a moment to credit Cusack for bringing her on board the movie.
“I got sort of vaulted into this because I read with Cusack and we had this massive connection,” admitted Driver. “And then he said we should just come and hang out and like, we should see what’s up, which I did. And what I realized was, the way that they make things is like, it is this moving creative train, and if you want to jump on board and make stuff, then do that and be willing. And I was.”
In addition to Cusack and Driver, “Grosse Pointe Blank” starred Alan Arkin, Dan Aykroyd, Joan Cusack (John’s sister), Jeremy Piven, and Hank Azaria.
Driver confessed she walked away from the film thinking, “This was sort of a revolution of the way in which you make films. And I knew that this was in a bubble, and I probably wasn’t going to make a film like this again because it was like a runaway train. It was amazing.”
In the years following the hilarious movie, Driver has starred in countless sitcoms and comedy films, including the 2004 hit movie “Ella Enchanted,” the sitcom “About A Boy” in 2014, “Speechless” in 2016.
Earlier this month, the actress candidly assessed her peers in Hollywood who were getting an influx of cosmetic procedures.
“Guys, are we all getting new faces for Christmas? ‘Cause where are you getting them from? Do you think they’re going to run out? And does anyone got a discount code?” she asked with a serious face in a video posted earlier this week.
In November, Driver shared the secret to her glowing complexion with two barefaced selfies posted to Instagram.
“Ok, I’m pretty vain, so posting pictures without a scrap of makeup and un-touched up, are rare,” she wrote alongside the pics.
“The only reason I’m doing it now is because I’ve been ill, I have felt everyone of my years recently and I’m pretty astonished that my friend Keren [a “renowned cosmetic entrepreneur” who’s worked with Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton] can make me look like this: Christmas glow without the 5 mulled wines.”
Driver has been vocal about aging in Hollywood over the years, most recently detailing her thought process on working over 40.
“We’re allowed to be over 40 now,” she said during a panel discussion hosted by People in July. “It is different. I don’t know what that was done waking up to the idea that women are really just hitting their stride when they’ve, I think been through the gauntlet of only being seen sexually.”
