Minnie Driver Reveals ‘I’ve Had to Fight Really Hard for Every Job I Ever Got’

It’s good to work for things,” Driver tells PEOPLE. “It’s good for it to be difficult. It’s good to not just be handed stuff”

When the actress, 52, got her first big break on the 1995 film Circle of Friends, she got paid $… and thought she was set.

“I was like, ‘Well, if I got this job, then I’m definitely going to get another one,'” she says in the latest issue of PEOPLE. “And then I didn’t. I’ve had to fight really hard for every job I ever got. I feel like that was the first lesson in. It’s never just going to come easily. And I think that’s okay because the payoff is huge, like emotionally being able to do what you love for a living and make money at it.”

Driver, who has a new collection of essays, Managing Expectations (out May 3) in which she opens up about her journey to fame, becoming a single mom to son Henry, 13, and what she’s learned about love and loss. “I never wanted to do traditional memoir,” she says. “I had to figure out a way of telling these stories that was going to be funny and satisfying and honest and on my own terms.”

Driver adds that says her teenage son hasn’t watched much of her onscreen work, but he could have a future in the business. “He’s seen Princess Mononoke and Tarzan, but he knows how much I love it,” she says, adding: “I feel like he could easily be an actor. I kind of hope he isn’t, but he’s got that sort of ease in performance.”

Despite the times it has been tough to get a role, Driver says it’s all worth it.

“I think it’s hard. And there are days, where I just wish that it would a bit easier, but my mother really did teach me that hustling and the grind is actually really important and keeps you very grounded, and you should have to work for things,” she says. “It’s good to work for things. It’s good for it to be difficult. It’s good to not just be handed stuff.”