It was a mother-son date on Thursday December 19 as Minnie Driver took her 16-year-old son for dinner at the famed Santa Monica restaurant Giorgio Baldi.
British actress Minnie was seen showing affection to her teen son Henry, placing her head on his shoulder as he towered over her as they arrived at the Italian spot.
Henry rocked black jeans, a blue hoodie with the Chevrolet Silverado logo and a pair of white headphones. Minnie wrapped her arms around her son’s waist and was full of smiles as they walked together from their car, with Minnie in white pants, a camel-colored leather jacket and ballet flats.
© BACKGRIDMinnie has been raising her son Henry between London and Los Angeles, and the Malibu coast where she purchased a two-bedroom home over 20 years ago, which she previously described as an “utter retreat”.
During the COVID-19 pandemic Minnie and Henry spent time at the home, especially as the pair found it challenging, like many other parents and their children.
© Jeff Spicer, Getty“We had a really rough day – we were both feeling sad,” Minnie told People magazine in 2021 of one such moment.
“And we have this gigantic speaker in the kitchen, and I just hooked it up and we played “Love’s In Need Of Love Today” by Stevie Wonder, and we were just dancing. Then I was about to get a bit tearful and I was like, ‘No, it’s Stevie Wonder. Nobody cries at Stevie Wonder. Dance!’ And we just danced.
“We danced around the kitchen with the dog barking, and we both felt better at the end of it. We collapsed in the pile on the beanbags on the kitchen floor and we felt a lot better.”
© Getty ImagesMinnie’s journey to motherhood has been filled with joy and surprise – none more so than when she was told she was expecting a baby girl only to welcome a baby boy.
“I wanted the first word that he heard to be ‘love’ as I was pushing her out. And then my mum went, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s a boy.’ And I went, ‘F—. What the F—?'” Minnie told The Healthy Baby Show in 2022.
At the age of 18 the Good Will Hunting actress was told she would not be able to welcome children, but she celebrated her son’s birth at the age of 38, adding: “I always loved an adventure, and here was this great late stage adventure.”
She had always kept her son’s father’s identity private but in 2012 she revealed it was Timothy J. Lea, a writer on her 2007 TV show The Riches.
“I don’t need to protect him any more,” she told The Observer “He can fend for himself. He’s a grown-up.”
