Minnie Driver has admitted moving back to London after spending more than two decades in California was "really difficult".

The 55-year-old actress - who was born in London but spend much of her childhood living in Barbados - moved to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career but stepped away from making movies after her son Henry was born in 2008.

She became a US citizen in 2017 but she ended up moving back to London after the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 "changed everything" and made school difficult for her son. She explained to The Sunday Times newspaper: "[Henry] couldn't do Zoom school.

"His school stayed closed for 18 months, and when it did reopen you only had to go in once or twice a week. He begged me to let him go to school with his cousins in London, so we moved back."

The pair moved to the UK five years ago and Henry now attends the same boarding school which his mother attended as a child.

Minnie added: "When Henry was younger I basically stopped making movies because I wanted him to have a regular life.

"I wanted him to have a normal life and play football and have people over for tea. And I did that for eight years.

"And in that time I did two TV shows and then just went to the beach. And then COVID kind of changed everything.

"But I think my childhood made me uniquely able to cope with going: 'Right, so we're upping sticks and going to do this new thing.'

"It was really difficult for a couple of years after moving back but now I love it."

The Good Will Hunting star is returning to work again with a role in Lily Collins' TV series Emily In Paris and she's now enjoying her career after struggling through some "fallow years".

She added: "I'm mainly putting food on the table and having a really nice time. But my life is quite itinerant and I'm continually trying to create structure within that ...

"Believe me, it has been difficult [finding work]. The public only hear from me when I've got something coming out, but there have been fallow years.

"There have been years when there wasn't much work and the things you've made didn't make much revenue.

"These days I try to work consistently, but it has been really tough."