Drew Barrymore: Drew Grit

Why, things got so plummy the co-stars even started bonding. Well, most, anyway. "I wanted to feel equal to these women," Drew explains. "Of course, when I got to the set, they all had big trailers and I had a really small one. I felt like an outcast. But I also didn't want to get in the way of them doing what they needed to do, you know? I didn't want to have a problem with anybody. All of them are used to being the star of the show and, all of a sudden, three powerful Hollywood women have got to share? There we are in this town right near the Mexican border. It had no mailman, no restaurant, no shopping. I mean, if a J. Crew catalog arrived on Sunday, you should have seen people fighting over it. All of a sudden, though, out there in Nowhereville, we all let all the stuff go. No more Hollywood bullshit. We were totally in character, totally struggling and we had to learn to become friends with each other and not to be competitive. Thank God, you know, it happened, but, believe me, it wasn't easy. You know, after five months of this, as close as we all got to each other, it still became, 'If I don't get outta here, I'm gonna kill somebody.' I mean, five months! Jonathan's big joke was, 'We'll be eating enchiladas for Thanksgiving.' And we each gained 15 pounds eating greasy catering food all day and night."

So, with which of her incredibly strong co-stars would she least like to meet up with on a dark sound stage? Drew laughingly makes an attempt at diplomacy. "Andie is the fucking funniest woman ever. She's tasteful, so elegant, such a lady. I love Mary Stuart, who was the practical joker. The guys, James LeGros and Dermot Mulroney, were great--Dermot's one of the nicest men I've ever met, and James is so fucking brilliant in the movie, it's scary." Having gone out of her way to say nothing about Madeleine Stowe, Barrymore answers my question.

"The thing this movie most brought back for me is fearlessness." Drew says. "There was so much time to spend 'quality time' with Drew, I was like--" she breaks off, feigning nausea. Then, serious again, she observes. "I couldn't understand what I needed to fulfill me. It sure wasn't a boyfriend. There was this overwhelming emptiness inside and no way of avoiding it. I met this wonderful hairdresser on the movie, and while I was crying one day, she was comforting me and I said, 'I need to know. Does it get easier in life?' And she said it does. When I got back, I went to visit Steven at his office and I asked him the same thing."

From the vibe in her voice when she says "Steven," I know she means Steven Spielberg, for whom she made E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and who has remained a surrogate father figure, if an illusory one, ever since. "I went to visit him at his office and he gave me a copy of the book Schindler's List as a present. I told him how I had reevaluated my life and was hoping that it gets easier. He said it did get easier. I listened to him, looked at this little painting of clouds and buildings that I made for him when I was six years old that he keeps framed on his wall, and I thought, 'Steven is obviously one of the ultimate people that I respect, yet he will always look at me as a young child.' There's something so comforting about that, that someone would see someone else through such pure eyes.

"You see," she says, after staring off a moment, "I always had this theory that I would never live past 25." There've been points where I felt I've already lived my whole life. Now I know that I can take things slowly. I have been so scared of so many things. My friend, Justine, she's so free with herself, I admire her and I've always wanted that kind of freedom, not to be afraid of it. I feared change. [While making Bad Girls] I was thinking, 'Do I want to change who I am?' and I felt like it was the time. On my days off, I would drive around to little towns, hundreds of miles away, just trip around, dig nature, paint a picture, think about things, write a lot. I came back from this movie a very changed person. For the first time in my life, I'm not afraid." She flashes me a radiant smile. "Come on, Steve, I want to show you my new house."

As we're careening in her big black utility vehicle through the narrowest passageways of the hills above Hollywood en route to her place, she remarks, "Here's another thing I'm not afraid to say anymore: I don't think I'm a good actress." Wrapped in designer shades with a Marlboro dangling from her lips, she drives like a bat out of hell. "When Vincent Canby wrote about Guncrazy, saying it's the greatest film, I was, like, 'I didn't even think he'd see this movie.' But I think I have an amazing ability to adapt to other people, to bring them to life. I don't know where it stems from. If I'm schizophrenic, then at least I use it to the best of my ability. It's that 'technique' thing I'm afraid of. I don't know if what I do on-screen is right, wrong, good, bad. I don't want to go to classes. I want to do a character, no holds barred, to give my soul to that person. I never want to alter that. If I ever start talking to you about my 'craft,' my 'instrument,' you have permission to shoot me point-blank."

Drew treats me to a couple of tunes from an all-girl punk group she and her pals went out to hear last night. I'm popping my head to the beat, but there's this strange arrhythmic rattling I keep hearing. What's that? Drew grabs her handbag by way of explanation, and gives it a good shake. More rattles. "You can always hear me coming because of my Motrin," she explains, laughing.

"God, I love to drive," she says, as she shaves a corner on, I swear, two wheels. "This is one of those days, you know the kind, where you're really happy driving around, smiling for no reason, singing along with your song and people are looking at you, like, 'Who's that crazy blonde?'" Yeah. So what happened to her BMW, the one in which we tore through Hollywood one night a couple of years back? "Accident," she mutters. "I lost my license for months."

We draw up to the '20s-era Spanish house Drew shares with Justine, one of her two closest women friends, her "girlies." "We're very anal around here," she says, laughing, as we pick our way through piles of clothes, pocket money, cassettes, books by Bukowski. The decor? Blue Velvet meets Little Women: plum and cranberry walls, overstuffed Victorian sofas, flowy drapes, oversized mirrors, dressers decorated with decoupages, psychedelic-hued Mexican votive candles, a goldfish wobbling in a bowl that hasn't been cleaned anytime recently, stacks of CDs and videotapes, and photos of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's and Sue Lyon in Lolita.

I refer to Drew's house as The House That Guess? Pays For. "It's so funny you say that," she says, giggling, "because when we found this house, Justine and I had been living for six months in a hellhole apartment and there were 30 other people who wanted this house, too. I was in a state, like, 'Omigod, the rent's too expensive, but if I don't wake up in this house every morning from now on, I'm going to be very upset. Where am I going to get the money?' The next morning, my publicist calls and I'm like, 'What terrible thing did I say or do now?' but he says, 'Guess? jeans called.' I said, 'Yeah? Do they want to send me a free pair? I accept.' He said, 'No, they want you to be their girl, to shoot anywhere from two to four ad campaigns.' I thought he was joking. The amount was exactly what I needed to pay the rent."

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