Drew Barrymore loves daisies for the hopefulness they express, and butterflies for the metamorphosis they promise. Here, fresh out of her latest cocoon, Barrymore talks about why she passed up the lead in Scream, how much she likes the film Showgirls and what she thinks of the "three flowers" she's "planted"-- The Wedding Singer, Home Fries and Cinderella.
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Drew Barrymore whisks into the lobby of the Sunset Marquis Hotel perfectly on time, and perfectly alone, armed only with a CD player. Dressed casually in attire that covers most of the color spectrum--brown tweed coat with a knit scarf flecked with daisies, burgundy blouse, black pants and blue, red and yellow-striped socks--she flashes that pouty movie-star smile, giggles, and oozes natural charm. Within minutes, you feel like she's a close friend--though even your closest friend probably wouldn't start a conversation by lauding drag queens for their similarity to butterflies: "Drag queens give themselves the absolute freedom to be androgynous and express themselves through fashion and clothing and to be different characters on different days," she says. Barrymore has professed a love of daisies and butterflies for years, and her fascination with--and need for--these hopeful symbols is understandable.
Brought up in a dysfunctional family as the daughter of failed actor John Barrymore Jr., the granddaughter of the acting legend John Barrymore, and the grandniece of the formidable actress Ethel Barrymore, Drew has been a perpetual, public work in progress since she was a toddler. The child prodigy from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Firestarter grew into the kid who chronicled her stint in rehab for booze and cocaine at age 13 in the best-selling book Little Girl Lost. But Barrymore rebounded, and by 16, having won legal control of her finances and parted company with her mother and former manager, Jaid Barrymore, she began to build her career alone.
Weathering the resistance of casting directors and executives, she fought her way back by showing her screen presence, charm and sweet sexiness in films like Poison Ivy, Guncrazy and, especially, Boys on the Side. Directors liked her because she was on time, worked hard, and did what they asked. The camera had never stopped loving her. That didn't mean she completely left the wild child behind. She accumulated numerous tattoos, partied, flashed her breasts at David Letterman on TV and married then divorced quickly. But she not only entered her third decade still standing, she was getting to work with directors like Woody Allen.
Now 23, Barrymore is thriving. Her cameo in the teen horror hit Scream led to comparisons with Janet Leigh in Psycho. Through her production company, the Fox 2000-based Flower Films, she's developed several projects that have a good chance to get made, with her in the starring roles. She gets paid $3 million a picture. And in addition to the recently released comedy The Wedding Singer, in which she stars opposite Adam Sandier, she has two pictures scheduled to hit the screen this year--the quirky black comedy Home Fries, in which she stars with offscreen boyfriend Luke Wilson, and the upcoming film Cinderella, in which she stars opposite Anjelica Huston.
MICHAEL FLEMING: Since this is Movieline's "Hollywood Women" issue, let me start by asking you, how hard is it for a woman to be taken seriously in Hollywood?
DREW BARRYMORE: Not very hard anymore. I watched it change, starting in the late 70s as a young child. I do feel women are coming into their own, they're playing with the big boys. There's not just a boys' club, there's a women's club, too.
Q: Is your career where you want it to be?
A: Sorry for the Valley Girl phrase, but totally! I used to drive down some crazy street in the Valley when I was 12 years old, wondering where I'd be at 23. This has far exceeded my hopes.
Q: Just a few years ago, when you were doing Lolita roles, did you feel resentment that these were the roles Hollywood was willing to offer you?
A: No. I wanted to play those characters, because they weren't me. I'm nothing like Lolita, or a bad girl, or a gun-toting woman. That's why it was so exciting. I got that out of my system without having to do it in real life.
Q: You just finished Cinderella, right? Does playing the girl who fits the glass slipper appeal to you because it shuts the door on the memory of bad-girl roles?
A: There could be an element of that there. But I hope that it doesn't close those doors so I can't go back to that opposite extreme, because I want to do everything. Cinderella is a different kind of challenge. This was hard for me, scary, because I wanted to abolish the cliches, yet still have the magical fairy tale. This team of filmmakers wanted to make a classy production. We set out to make a beautiful movie. I didn't want to be a blonde Cinderella who has her bosoms out as she's dusting the fireplace. I wanted to play a girl from 400 years ago, with an English accent.
Q: Your Cinderella costar Anjelica Huston has probably the most high-profile Hollywood lineage besides your own. Did you bond on that level?
A: Early on, everyone at Fox, from Chris Meledandri, the president of Fox Family Films, to Bill Mechanic, the chairman and CEO of the studio, and all the writers, wanted her for that role. It finally came down to a phone call that I made. I said, "Listen, I'd be honored to work with you. I promise this will be the most amazing film to work on and that it will be Barrymore and fucking Huston and let's pay homage to our families. I see it up there--Barrymore and Huston--and let's have our grandfathers and our fathers looking down and smiling. And we'll go and act and truly pour our souls into this."
Q: How did she react to that motivational speech?
A: She laughed. And then she did it.
Q: You made an indelible impression in Scream, even. though you were gone after the opening scene.
A: The weird thing is that when Harvey Weinstein pitched me the script originally, I was set for the lead, Sidney, which became Neve Campbell's character. He gave a 10-minute pitch on the first 17 pages, then talked about five minutes on how the rest of the movie goes. I got it, I love scary movies, and the thing that kept jumping in my brain was "untouched genre." I knew the potential. Harvey and I joined forces and 'went together, believed in the movie. That was one of the rare movies where I thought about the potential of financial success. Other people thought we were nuts, saw it as a B slasher movie. So we thought, Who would rock and make this good? We thought of [Desperado director] Robby Rodriguez and we flew to Toronto together, pitched it to him as a franchise. Finally, we fixed on Wes Craven, who was apprehensive at first. The irony is, the last time this genre was touched was 10 years ago, A Nightmare on Elm Street--his movie. We thought, great, perfect. All of a sudden, one night, I don't know why it hit me, I was in my New York apartment, and I got on the phone and said, "I have to play the first part."
Q: You were willing to kiss off carrying a movie you knew would be your biggest hit since E.T.?
A: Yes. I knew this was the part of the movie that was most challenging. I'm thinking Janet Leigh in Psycho, I'm thinking Angie Dickinson in Dressed to Kill. One thing about scary movies like Halloween, all the franchises, is, whenever you're with the one character, you know you're safe, that they're never going to die. I knew if I died, then nobody would be safe. How cool is that? It messed with the system and they let me do it and it was fun.
Q: That was quite a frightening sequence.
A: There are two ways you could go with that role. Girls can be tough, kick the bad guy in the sternum, shove him out of the way and fly down the stairs. No way. If it was me, I'd be shitting, vomiting, puking, peeing, crying in a comer. I wanted to play the character that way. I spent seven days, up 18 hours a day, with blood all over me. Later, I made jokes about how I didn't have PMS for six months because of that movie.
Q: Did you ever regret that your character's evisceration made her ineligible for sequel duty?
A: No! I just saw the sequel and I loved it. But I got to do what I wanted to do. To me, it's never about money, it's about work. Sure, I would have loved to have been part of those Scream movies, just for the people involved. I feel a part of that family. I missed them while they were shooting their movie, but I got to do The Wedding Singer and Cinderella.
Q: Don't you feel pressure to play the lead in a big hit?
A: No. I think The Wedding Singer is a movie people will enjoy. Instead of dollar signs, I see enjoyment signs.
Q: How did The Wedding Singer come about?
A: Part of the reason I don't feel competitive is because I have a company and I'm always trying to develop things. I never want to sit back and wait and see what comes to me. Adam Sandler and I met because we wanted to work together. I had an idea, he had an idea, we decided which one we liked. We chose his. That's the coolest thing in the world.
Q: Are you looking to get the roles that, say, Winona Ryder is getting?
A: When I was supposed to do the current Woody Allen movie and couldn't because I was committed to Cinderella, Winona Ryder did that movie. That's why competitiveness is silly. There's enough to go around for everybody and fate is always, always working. There's a hunger and a fervor that I have, but there's no person I'm going to push to the side to get to where I'm going. I want to create my own road.
Q: Was it tough for you to say to Woody that you couldn't be in his next movie?
A: The worst! The absolute worst in the world. The only thing I do is send a personal affirmation, once in the morning and one at the end of the day, that I get to work with him again. It's that fate thing. I just hope that fate will take me to him again. Deconstructing Harry was by far the best movie I saw last year. He's brilliant and everything he says is everything you'd want to say, but articulated on the most eloquent level ever known to man.
Q: How do you think the studios perceive you now?
A: I hope that they look at me and say, This person is professional and shows up to work every day, tries their hardest and gives their best. That's the only thing I know for sure that I can do. I don't know if I can bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. I can be professional. That I dig. Reliability.
Q: Do you have to lobby hard for the roles you want?
A: I think everyone has to lobby. You have to fight for these things, but the fight makes it worth it. I don't trust things that come easily.
Q: In The Wedding Singer, you play a woman getting married, and in Home Fries, you play a pregnant single woman. How do you feel about such eventualities for yourself?
A: Getting married and having babies? All in due time. It's funny. As long as I can remember, I've felt I can have a baby, right now, and be OK, even by myself and without a father. But to tell you the truth, with each peanut of smartness I accumulate, I get that I can wait. I always looked at it too quixotically. The truth is, I'm going to be such a good mother, I'll be thoroughly excited about it and I think I'll have a very honest relationship with my child. It's something I think about every day and I pat my tummy and know how sacred and beautiful it is. And I prepare for it every day in gathering information. Someday, when the planets are aligned just perfectly, I will have a child.
Q: Your boyfriend Luke Wilson is your costar in Home Fries, and there did seem to be obvious chemistry between you two.
A: Cool.
Q: What's it like to work alongside someone you have such strong feelings for?
A: The way Luke and I are on the set is completely professional. We don't sit on each other's laps, we don't hold hands. We might visit each other, see each other in makeup and hair, and we're friends. But we're not a couple when we work and we've done two movies together, so I know this. At night when we see each other, it's like, Omigod, I haven't seen you all day, how are you? Maybe that contributes to the chemistry because it is new and fresh and exciting every day.
Q: You wrote a book, Little Girl Lost, about being out of control and spending a year in rehab at the age of 13 for booze, pot and cocaine. It's obvious the way you were raised is not the ideal way to rear a child, though you seem fairly forgiving of mistakes your parents made. What will you do differently?
A: I don't think I would have my child be an actor. But some of that forgiveness you mention comes from this: there's one saintly quality I give to my mother, who, for all intents and purposes I don't get along with. I've only recently realized it in my growing maturity. Had she not given me the opportunities she did--no matter that they might seem from the outside like I was pushed--I would not be sitting here right now. It's true. In some people's eyes, she fucked up. I think she did. But she also gave me a weird, inadvertent gift which I have to appreciate and acknowledge.
Q: Your character in Home Fries loves and accepts her dysfunctional dad--there seem to be clear parallels to your own father, John Barrymore jr.
A: I could definitely relate to how Sally looked at her dad, which was, I see you just for who you are. And I accept you for that. More importantly, I expect nothing more, because that's the only way I won't be let down.
Q: How old were you when you embraced that attitude?
A: Immediately. By age three, he told me, "I can't be a father, I can't do it." I had respect for that honesty. [But] maybe I felt like saying, God, that's such a pathetic excuse. I think it is--it's weak. Someone said something to me that made so much sense to me it's changed my life. Even if parents are separating, kids need to know they'll see dad at 3:00 on Sunday and that mom is going to pick them up from school and that Friday they're having dinner at 7:30. That's all kids want. That's what pissed me off about my father. He didn't give me that. But it's cool.
Q: You've not only forgiven your absentee father, you've taken him in.
A: He's my father and he gave me life. But we're just like neighbors. I think I was basically just trying to make sure he was safe, and he is. I don't have to worry and I don't worry. I get snippets of what a lovely person he is. But I also remember he's that crazy man, the same one I knew when I was a kid. He didn't take care of me. I don't take care of him.
Q: Do you confide in him?
A: No, I don't confide in him, or rely on him. Whenever I see him, it's a joy. Then, sometimes I don't see him for two days. It's easy and it has to be easy.
Q: Could you reach that kind of resolution with your mother, Jaid? She raised you, managed your early career. But there seems to be more distance now than with your father, who wasn't there at all.
A: Dealing with my dad is enough right now. I don't have to think about it. I'm at peace. I've got lots of things to think about, and [my mother and I] don't really think alike.
Q: So you and your mother revolve in your separate orbits and you are OK with that?
A: Thank you, that's it exactly.
Q: While you've not had a lead role in a big hit, you've also managed to steer clear of disasters--like Showgirls, where you were an early contender for the role of Nomi. You know, Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas has wondered how the film would have turned out if it had had a lead actress like you to bring the vulnerability and warmth that Jennifer Beats brought to Flashdance.
A: I appreciate that, coming from him. As one of my great mentors, Harvey Weinstein, always says, it begins with the writing. Writers create the whole thing. So coming from Joe, that's a high compliment.
Q: But by Eszterhas's own admission, Showgirls was one of the great film debacles in recent memory.
A: Yes, but because of the campiness, they got lucky. I'm into predictions, and [when I saw the film] I said, "This is going to be The Rocky Horror Picture Show of the '90s"--and not one month later, they started showing it at midnight moviehouses.
Q: Would it have been different if you'd been Nomi?
A: They put an homage to me in that movie, did you know that? Nomi goes to her mirror when she first becomes a showgirl, and it says "Drew" on it, and she takes the name off. Now, that's the way I wanted to be in that movie.
Q: Showgirls dates back to your stripper phase, when you used to get up on tables in bars and shed your clothes. Is that what made you want to star in that film?
A: I really did entertain the idea of doing Showgirls. It was at a time where I was finding strip dubs incredibly interesting--vulnerable, shady, strange in the weirdest of ways. I was being free and having fun in this great rock-and-roll world. A perfect time in my life. I posed in Playboy. What I saw in Showgirls was that it could be All That Jazz, one of my favorite movies growing up, or Lenny. That strip scene with Valerie Perrine in Lenny is one of the sexiest scenes I've ever seen in my life and you don't see one nipple. I thought it would be somewhere in that vein. When I realized it was going to go a different way, I decided it wouldn't be the right movie. I couldn't offer what this movie needed because I would have played it vulnerable.
Q: Were you breathing a sigh of relief when you saw Showgirls?
A: Well, I was glad I didn't do it because I was glad it was the way it was. I enjoyed it the way it was. I dig the film.
Q: Who are the women you admire in Hollywood?
A: There are tons. Women are so in their sync. I have always respected Jodie Foster. She's a true leader to women and someone I grew up worshiping as an actor. I've never followed in her footsteps, but I always admire what she says and how she's remained so classy. I love my friend Courtney Love, because she's this fabulous, cultural phenomenon who's still a human being. Patricia Arquette is my absolute favorite actress. Her family lived nearby when I was a kid and I used to see her in the early to mid '80s, going around with painted mustaches on her face, wearing glitter platforms and crazy colored tights. She was so glammed out in the coolest, most individualistic way. She's always been a hero of mine. I just want to work with her so badly. I like her because she's sexy, vulnerable and truthful. Jennifer Jason Leigh is the same way.
Q: Do you have a big ego?
A: One of the things I learned in therapy is not to be untrusting of things that come to me. To trust myself that I might have done something that brought that good fortune. I am so shocked and surprised, and I say every night, how well things are going. But I know what it's like when it gets taken away, and that makes me not have an ego. Because you don't get to sit on some diamond mushroom every day. Life isn't like that. It's ups and downs. I'm terrified of ego, and the preventative is knowing that I've done this my whole life, and if a big splash came, it's not like, Omigod, my life will be different. It's more like, Hey, it's always been like this.
Q: You and Courtney Love have in common the rare achievement of being perceived one way, then reinventing yourselves.
A: She and I worship butterflies, that drag queen metamorphosis. Madonna was always exciting to little girls when I was growing up because she changed her look every month. It's not an exterior shallow thing, it's literally a reinvention of yourself. I think that's far more wonderful than relying on how wonderful you are all the time and never changing.
Q: You're 23 and seem to have been around 30 years. How have you kept audiences and the press from turning on you?
A: That's great if they still like me. I don't know the answer. The only thing I can think is there will never be a tidal wave of glory for me. I pray to be like the ocean, with soft currents, maybe waves at times. More and more, I want the consistency rather than the highs and the lows. I don't need to be high profile. What I want to do most is continue to work because I'm very happy when I'm working. I love being an employee.
Q: Looking ahead five years, do you want to be the actress who gets the best scripts first, or do you want to be a director, or do you want to be living on a ranch in Texas, raising kids?
A: I go back and forth. In five years, I really want to be a more enlightened hippie living in Texas, at least half of me does. The other half would go nuts and really wants to play the game. Directing is exactly where I want to go next. I don't sit there and masturbatorily talk about it, because when I do it, I'll do it.
Q: It's hard to imagine you moving away and not living here. Could you really leave all this behind?
A: I don't know, this has always been my base, my one form of consistency. I've always lived here. I still live in the neighborhood [I grew up in].
Q: So much has been written about your wild periods, the stripping, the infatuation with lesbianism...
A: It's all been done, so who cares ...
Q: Yes, but you seem well balanced now. There must be some secret vice.
A: There is. I'm a closet rave music fanatic, I swear to God. I don't go to raves, but I want to. It could be 3:00 in the afternoon, I'm driving in my Volkswagen bus, listening to Daft Punk, and everything's OK. That's my own little rave machine. It's not slam dance and mosh pits, but it's club music, acid, funk, psychedelic, hip-hop instrumental. I'm obsessed with it. And with my CD walkman, I'm walking down the street, bopping around listening to Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and my all-time favorite, the Beatles, and no one else is hearing it. It's like a drug, it enhances life.
Q: As you grow into adulthood and put the other vices behind you, will you become boring?
A: I guess I'm getting old and boring, that's it in a nutshell. I swear I'd like to do the rave scene, but I tend to work myself so hard I'm exhausted and can't do anything. There are times I miss the nightlife, but when I feel that way I go out and I party a little bit.
Q: You've sipped two glasses of wine during this interview. You had problems early in your early teens, and you come from alcoholic stock. Are you courting problems by drinking at all?
A: I think it has a huge amount to do with priorities and intentions. Everything starts with intentions. You set your priorities, your responsibilities, and what's important to you. When you have those things together, self-destruction just doesn't play a role in your life. Not at all.
Q: But reading your book made me think that like, say, Robert Downey Jr., you have to be careful.
A: We can talk about addiction and if you want to use his name we can, though I wouldn't bring it up. He does drugs. I have a glass of wine or two. But I've never done heroin, never. And if there ever was a time, it's so far gone. I giggle sometimes because of the comparisons that are made. I never walked around with guns or heroin, I was never that out of it. I was a kid who rebelled. When I see a kid trying to figure this shit out, it saddens me. But when I seen an adult trying to figure this shit out, it saddens me more, because they should know by then. When my thing happened, it was a helluva lot more subtle than his. But because it was public it seemed out of the ordinary. And I don't know if it was a different time, or because I was a girl. The circumstances are different now. It's a more open society, and [Downey's] also a man, but he's done all these things and yet he's still accepted in the industry, and employed. That to me is really shocking. I think if it was a woman, even in these times, it would be very different. A woman would be considered, if I may use the words, scummy and dirty. For some reason, men--and there is a small but prominent group of actors who repeatedly do public acts that are the opposite of family values--continue to work in studio movies. There's a dichotomy there that I haven't figured out. I don't want to sum it up and just say it's sexist. But in the end, when I think about someone like Robert Downey Jr., I think he should be a) grateful, and b) keep his act together.
Q: You're finally moving on All She Wanted, a true story which you'll produce and star in as a girl who reinvents herself as a boy, becomes very popular, and is raped and murdered by other boys who find out his/her secret. Why do you want to star in such a bleak film?
A: This is a chance for me as much as it is a risk, to do something I'd otherwise never be able to do. As a producer, I know the material lends itself to being sad, but I don't want to make a dour movie, I want to make an exciting movie. You know inevitably a tragedy takes place, but if we can make it a thrilling ride, without belittling anyone, that's the way I want to make this movie. It's taken years of living with it, working with the writer. The evolution has taken us to the point this movie is ready to be made in the right way.
Q: There's been talk about you maybe playing Sandra Dee in Barry Levinson's biopic of Bobby Darin.
A: Isn't that a tabloid creation? I wouldn't mind, but I'd think [if I were doing it] I'd be aware of it.
Q: Well, it would be an interesting part for you. Sandra Dee was rushed into the business at an early age, terrible things were done to her and she never really seemed to find happiness. You've been through more than your share of difficulty and yet seem happy.
A: It didn't take a long time for me to be happy. There were a few years where I felt, I don't know where I'm going. I tried a lot of different things and wasn't succeeding at them. [Figuratively speaking] I was scrubbing the muffin case with the abrasive side of the sponge and got yelled at because that scratches the glass so you can't see the muffins clearly. I knew I wasn't doing well at that. It's certainly not to say that I couldn't succeed at anything but acting. But I was lying to myself to think acting wasn't what I should be focusing my energy on.
Q: What do you focus your energy on now?
A: I'm incredibly focused now on the three flowers which I've planted--I mean Home Fries, The Wedding Singer and Cinderella. And I'm focused on the next projects for my company. I'm also encouraged by the work I'm doing on two charities. I look at Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Temple, women who use their base for something positive. Being an actress is the best job I could have in this society and this world. But if I can do something more with it, that would be the best. I like having my relationships in the business. Meeting writers and actors and directors, all on professional levels. I don't want to socialize and party with these people. A dinner would be the most social gathering I'd present myself in now.
Q: So you don't try as hard to play the game, get noticed?
A: No, I try harder, but my channels are different. I'm not at every function. I'm getting deals together and sitting there trying to find out who's the up-and-coming writer and how can we get them. I work harder than ever on this. Even on my time off, I'm in my office all day. We're open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. I'm usually there noon to eight. That's the one thing--I'm usually late to the office.
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Michael Fleming interviewed James Cameron for the Dec./Jan. '98 issue of Movieline.