Driver made TV debut as a child activist

British actress Minnie Driver got her first taste of fame when she was just eight years old - after a BBC TV crew caught her on camera protesting against plans to chop down her school tree.

The 'Good Will Hunting' star, 38, was taking part in a song-and-dance protest outside her school in Hampshire, England to try and save a 300-year-old oak tree from destruction to make way for a new highway.

The campaign was a success - but their victory only lasted a few years.

She says: "There was this 300-year-old oak tree that was going to get chopped down and BBC Nationwide came down and filmed me up a tree, with my hippie English teacher Bob playing the guitar at the bottom. The camera panned up the tree and you saw these little legs, and this kilt that I was wearing, and there I was perched in the tree singing a song about this beautiful tree.

"Yeah, we staved off the bypass for 10 years - and then they rerouted the A3 right through the grounds of the school."