Six months after the birth of her first child, Henry Story Driver, whose father’s name she refuses to reveal publicly, Minnie Driver has also recently released her second album of alternative country songs, all of which she wrote.

Oh, and the TV drama she stars in opposite Eddie Izzard, The Riches has been commissioned for a third series. Not bad for her first year living full-time in her adopted home of Los Angeles.

“I act being calm, but I’m far more panicky as a person than I might seem,” she laughs. The 37-year-old actress has come through a range of incarnations over the past decade or so, in spite of being born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, to a wealthy financier father and fashion model mother.

Television

This is clearly something she’s conscious of as she settles into being a single mother.

“I’ve led a pretty unorthodox life and now I’m moving around a lot. I’m on film sets or the TV show and I just want this kid to be, you know, of the world and to play a lot and have a lot of joy and not watch a lot of television. I know, I can actually get rid of the television,” she laughs.

Born in London, she grew up in luxury in Barbados until her parents divorced and she moved back to the UK. Music was always her first love and she would return to it in a heartbeat if the acting work stopped.

“I write songs and poems all the time and I play guitar; I’d be a musician full-time if this business got tired of me.”

However, with an Academy Award nomination for her role in Good Will Hunting and several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her role as the drug-addled matriarch of the Irish American traveller family in The Riches, her relationship with acting doesn’t look like it will come to an end any time soon.

As one of the more genuinely socially engaged actresses of her generation, she launched the Brown Thomas fundraiser for breast cancer research in Dublin last year. “I was honoured to be asked to spearhead the campaign in Dublin. This is an issue that affects so many families, not only women, although we are clearly more directly impacted.”

Three years ago Oxfam named her as its goodwill ambassador, which she says she was delighted to accept.

“The school I went to was based on socialist principles and it was very much about the community and having an awareness of the world.

“I was doing sponsored swims for Oxfam when I was seven or eight and it’s so amazing to wind up an ambassador for them.

“There’s a responsibility when you’re out there and millions of people are looking at what you do and if you have an opportunity to discuss issues in an interesting way, I think it’s great and there’s a place for doing so.”

The question of who the father of her baby is remains taboo and I am warned ahead by her publicist not to even ask. So, of course, I ask.

She becomes visibly more guarded: “I’ll talk about the physicality of it, how I had morning sickness, how tired I’ve been, to the ends of the earth. But to protect this beautiful, private moment, I’m just not getting into it. I’m sure it will come out in time, but right now, I’d like to protect the baby and him and let the focus be on me.”

Personal

Driver endeared herself to many Irish viewers for the role of Benny Hogan, which she played in the film adaptation of Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends. She had to put on two stone to play the role of the small town girl who goes to college in Dublin and wins the heart of Chris O’Donnell.

She remains really fond of that role, but she feels that writing her own material and the reaction to it is way more personal than acting a role written by someone else.

“If someone doesn’t like a movie that I made, you kind of take it a little personally, but you can also go: ‘Oh well, I didn’t direct it, I didn’t produce it, I didn’t write it. I’m just an actor for hire.’ But it’s definitely a little trickier with the music. I just believe in artists doing lots of things.”