Minnie Driver in Take Courtesy of Liberation Entertainment

Since nabbing an Oscar nom for her performance in Good Will Hunting (as well as one for the coveted Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards), Minnie Driver has taken a different route to fame and creative fulfillment. While she could have had her pick of the blockbuster flicks, her last big screen role was almost four years ago in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Parts in low budget indies like The Virgin of Juarez and Tom DiCillo's Delirious have been overshadowed by an Emmy nomination for FX Television's The Riches and her second album, Seastories.

Minnie Driver's fierce independence was further demonstrated when she recently announced her pregnancy but remained mum about the identity of the father; she's expressed her determination to raise her child with the support of friends and family. In the final stages of her pregnancy, she is continuing to work on Katherine Dieckmann's upcoming movie Motherhood, writing songs for her next album, and working for Oxfam.

Driver's next film, Take, by first time writer-director Charles Oliver, provided Driver not only with a vehicle that examines a powerful political issue but also a rich, conflicted character to inhabit. She plays Ana, a single mother whose life violently intersected with Saul's (played by Jeremy Renner) one day many years before. The film flashes back between the day their lives changed forever and the present day, in which Ana is traveling to witness Saul's execution.

Though the death penalty, gun laws, and politics are all issues close to Minnie Driver's heart, her thoughts are also with the pending birth of her child. She talked to Premiere about her "weird and beautiful career," why she won't name the father or find out the sex of her baby, and her current craving for all foods green.

Was it the part that made you want to make Take? Or was it the fact this is an issue movie?
No, I'd never do something that was just about an issue that was interesting, if it was rubbish. It was a really well-written script. And [Charles Oliver] is a really fantastic person and turned out to be a great director. It cost about a million dollars to make, and it looks extraordinary. It's beautifully shot. It's been beautifully processed and put together. Ultimately it's about something that is so prevalent now and having a huge impact on the penal system. In Britain too, the prison systems are in a huge state of decline.

Prison can be a revolving door for criminals.
Yeah, and the idea of there being some restoration of people who have committed violent crimes is so antithetical to [the belief that we should] shove them away and get rid of them. So the idea that somehow [criminals] being restored to some place of humanity could heal those whose lives they have altered so violently is kind of amazing. A lot of us deal in a very reactive way when bad things happen. [But] forgiveness is healing. It's been proved over and over again.