DRIVER’S EDUCATION
Sunday, 11am, in London’s Ham Yard Hotel. Not the most palatable time to meet one of Hollywood’s finest, perhaps. But an audience with Adam Driver means fitting into an insanely demanding schedule. He’s just arrived in the city from Belgium, where he’s filming Annette, the new Sparks scored rock-opera musical from the brilliant, elusive French director Leos Carax. Last night he joined another Annette – Bening – on the London Film Festival red carpet for Scott Burns’ CIA exposé The Report; while today it’s the turn of Noah Baumbach’s exhilarating drama-of-the-heart Marriage Story, and an impending audience Q&A. “That sounds very scary,” he gulps.
With Episode IX of the Star Wars saga, The Rise Of Skywalker, also due before the year is out, it’s the sort of pressure that might flatten some. But Driver is resolute, relaxed. Dressed in jeans, black denim jacket and a lumberjack-check shirt – more high-street casual than designer label chic – he radiates blue-collar warmth.
Tall, gawky even, he sinks into the
