'I like being flawed', says actress Drew Barrymore, now 35
The first thing that strikes you about Drew Barrymore is how – there’s no other word for it – normal she now seems, for a woman who inherited both a famous name and a tragic legacy from her legendary acting family. Her scandal-filled childhood was followed by a deeply troubled adolescence that included drug and alcohol addiction, a suicide attempt and several spells in rehab.
But she turned her life around and during the past decade has matured into a multi-talented actress, producer and, more recently, director, who has shaken off the shadow of her family name to establish herself as a major force in her own right in Hollywood.
“Being a Barrymore didn’t help me, other than giving me a great sense of pride and a strange spiritual sense that I felt OK about having the passion to act,” she says. “It made sense because my whole family had done it and it helped rationalise it for me.”
We have met in Beverly Hills to talk about her latest film, Going the Distance, yet another romcom, a genre in which she specialises. But this one is not really for the young girls who have been her faithful core audience: it’s the most raunchy, edgy and daring of the films she has made so far.
She and Justin Long, her real-life on-again, off-again boyfriend, play a couple who meet in New York, enjoy a summer fling, then try to keep the romance burning when she returns home to San Francisco.
“It was so great to be able to talk the way I do in real life with my friends,” she says. “I think a film about real love and life and what we go through in relationships and with our friends would be impossible to do authentically if it didn’t have sex and [bad] language, because it wouldn’t be realistic.”
The Long factor just adds to the realism. They met three years ago when they were both cast in He’s Just Not Into You and dated for a year before splitting up and then reuniting early last year. Neither will say if they are still together.
“I thought it would be a unique experience to go to work with someone I did have a history with and I have had emotional times with and who genuinely makes me laugh and who I’m genuinely attracted to,” she says. “I knew the chemistry between us would be honest, so we would be able to bring a truth to the fact that relationships can be very difficult, and I thought that would be a real benefit.”
She talks confidently, with the air of someone who knows exactly what she wants to say and it is easy to imagine her as both producer and director, taking complete command of a movie set.
Now 35, Drew Barrymore comes from a five-generation strong acting dynasty that included her grandfather, Shakespearean actor John Barrymore, an alcoholic who died at 60 of cirrhosis of the liver; silent film star grandmother Dolores Costello; great-uncle and Oscar winner Lionel Barrymore; and Oscar-winning great-aunt Ethel, who once turned down a marriage proposal from Winston Churchill. Drew’s father, John Barrymore Jr, split from her mother, model Jaid, soon after Drew was born, and died in 2004 after years of homelessness and drug addiction.
She has bizarre memories of him. “I liked when my dad would walk around in bare feet, stoned, and talk about how the blades of grass felt on his feet, and how he could tell which ones were hurting and didn’t want to be stepped on, and I thought, 'Wow that’s my dad; he’s really trippy and cool,’ ” she recalls. She pauses and then laughs: “Not a very wholesome movie moment, but that’s what my dad was.”
It was her family connections that won Barrymore her first big break when her godfather, Steven Spielberg, cast her as the dimpled, precocious seven-year-old in E.T. But things turned sour when her mother, an inveterate partygoer, began taking her on a round of all-night parties. By the time Drew was 12 she was drinking alcohol and using cocaine; at 13 she was in rehab; and at 15 the little girl who had shown so much promise was working in a Hollywood coffee shop.
There were two more trips to rehab before she moved in with musician David Crosby, himself a survivor of drug and alcohol abuse, and his wife, who helped her straighten her life out. She applied in court to become legally emancipated from her parents.
As she matured, her professional life has soared. She has appeared in some 50 movies and her production company, Flower Films, has produced a dozen, including the two Charlie’s Angels adventures, and a string of successful romcoms. She was executive producer on the cult classic Donnie Darko and recently made her directing debut with the well-received roller-derby movie Whip It!, in which she starred alongside Ellen Page.
“I feel really excited about the last few years of my life,” she says. “I pride myself on them and I didn’t know I had that much discipline. I’ve worked really hard and got to do things I’ve always wanted to do and now I feel things are going really well. I just want to make sure I have a sense of balance between work and life, because work is my life and the lines can get really blurry.”
It is true that her personal life has been complicated. Her two marriages, to Welsh-born bar owner Jeremy Thomas in March 1994 and comedian Tom Green in July 2001, lasted less than six months combined, and her boyfriends have included actors Val Kilmer and Luke Wilson, as well as the Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti.
Looking back on her topsy-turvy past, she is philosophical. “You can’t live your life blaming your failures on your parents and what they did or didn’t do for you,” she says. “You’re dealt the cards that you’re dealt. I realised it was a waste of time to be angry at my parents and feel sorry for myself.
“The low points I had all helped make up my character, so I probably wouldn’t want to do away with them because I like being flawed and I like having them help me grow and change and become better and stronger.”
We have met in Beverly Hills to talk about her latest film, Going the Distance, yet another romcom, a genre in which she specialises. But this one is not really for the young girls who have been her faithful core audience: it’s the most raunchy, edgy and daring of the films she has made so far.
She and Justin Long, her real-life on-again, off-again boyfriend, play a couple who meet in New York, enjoy a summer fling, then try to keep the romance burning when she returns home to San Francisco.
“It was so great to be able to talk the way I do in real life with my friends,” she says. “I think a film about real love and life and what we go through in relationships and with our friends would be impossible to do authentically if it didn’t have sex and [bad] language, because it wouldn’t be realistic.”
The Long factor just adds to the realism. They met three years ago when they were both cast in He’s Just Not Into You and dated for a year before splitting up and then reuniting early last year. Neither will say if they are still together.
“I thought it would be a unique experience to go to work with someone I did have a history with and I have had emotional times with and who genuinely makes me laugh and who I’m genuinely attracted to,” she says. “I knew the chemistry between us would be honest, so we would be able to bring a truth to the fact that relationships can be very difficult, and I thought that would be a real benefit.”
She talks confidently, with the air of someone who knows exactly what she wants to say and it is easy to imagine her as both producer and director, taking complete command of a movie set.
Now 35, Drew Barrymore comes from a five-generation strong acting dynasty that included her grandfather, Shakespearean actor John Barrymore, an alcoholic who died at 60 of cirrhosis of the liver; silent film star grandmother Dolores Costello; great-uncle and Oscar winner Lionel Barrymore; and Oscar-winning great-aunt Ethel, who once turned down a marriage proposal from Winston Churchill. Drew’s father, John Barrymore Jr, split from her mother, model Jaid, soon after Drew was born, and died in 2004 after years of homelessness and drug addiction.
She has bizarre memories of him. “I liked when my dad would walk around in bare feet, stoned, and talk about how the blades of grass felt on his feet, and how he could tell which ones were hurting and didn’t want to be stepped on, and I thought, 'Wow that’s my dad; he’s really trippy and cool,’ ” she recalls. She pauses and then laughs: “Not a very wholesome movie moment, but that’s what my dad was.”
It was her family connections that won Barrymore her first big break when her godfather, Steven Spielberg, cast her as the dimpled, precocious seven-year-old in E.T. But things turned sour when her mother, an inveterate partygoer, began taking her on a round of all-night parties. By the time Drew was 12 she was drinking alcohol and using cocaine; at 13 she was in rehab; and at 15 the little girl who had shown so much promise was working in a Hollywood coffee shop.
There were two more trips to rehab before she moved in with musician David Crosby, himself a survivor of drug and alcohol abuse, and his wife, who helped her straighten her life out. She applied in court to become legally emancipated from her parents.
As she matured, her professional life has soared. She has appeared in some 50 movies and her production company, Flower Films, has produced a dozen, including the two Charlie’s Angels adventures, and a string of successful romcoms. She was executive producer on the cult classic Donnie Darko and recently made her directing debut with the well-received roller-derby movie Whip It!, in which she starred alongside Ellen Page.
“I feel really excited about the last few years of my life,” she says. “I pride myself on them and I didn’t know I had that much discipline. I’ve worked really hard and got to do things I’ve always wanted to do and now I feel things are going really well. I just want to make sure I have a sense of balance between work and life, because work is my life and the lines can get really blurry.”
It is true that her personal life has been complicated. Her two marriages, to Welsh-born bar owner Jeremy Thomas in March 1994 and comedian Tom Green in July 2001, lasted less than six months combined, and her boyfriends have included actors Val Kilmer and Luke Wilson, as well as the Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti.
Looking back on her topsy-turvy past, she is philosophical. “You can’t live your life blaming your failures on your parents and what they did or didn’t do for you,” she says. “You’re dealt the cards that you’re dealt. I realised it was a waste of time to be angry at my parents and feel sorry for myself.
“The low points I had all helped make up my character, so I probably wouldn’t want to do away with them because I like being flawed and I like having them help me grow and change and become better and stronger.”
- Going the Distance (15) is out on Sept 10
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