Drew Barrymore is on the cover of the April, 2009 W magazine. Photographed by Mert Alas + Marcus Piggott, she looks quite beautiful. In the accompanying interview
Drew talks about her new films, Grey Gardens with Jessica Lange and her new directing career. For Grey Gardens she had to play a woman who is essentially isolated from the world for forty years: it's based on a true story about a mother and daughter. Drew decided to stay in character during the shoot.
Barrymore stayed in character during the initial rehearsals at the actual Grey Gardens and through the entire seven-and-a-half-week shoot in Toronto in 2007, refusing all contact with even her closest friends, save for her then boyfriend, actor Justin Long, who visited the set once or twice. Being Edie from age 18 to 60 involved wigs, prosthetics and five hours of daily makeup. Wanting to feel as cut off from the world as Edie had, she didn't use her cell phone or laptop or watch TV, and she read only Edie's journals and favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, The Marble Faun. The actress insisted that everyone on set call her Edie, and as Edie, composed journal entries and letters to Long on a typewriter. (Her best friend and producing partner, Nancy Juvonen, sent Barrymore a formal letter, addressed to Edie, to invite her to her wedding to Jimmy Fallon.)
Fearing she might "snap," Sucsy recalls, he suggested she return to playing Drew on Saturdays. Her dresser, Kent Cummins, an old friend of hers, confided to Sucsy, "Even the Saturday-night Drew wasn't the full Drew."
More complicated was mastering Edie's idiosyncratic cadences. Barrymore worked with a dialect coach for a year before shooting began, learning to project forward, and not speak out of the right side of her mouth, as is her habit. "She's always brought so much of herself to her parts," says [Cameron] Diaz. "This was the first time she was able to leave all of that behind."
Drew is working very hard on her new directing career. Her next film is Whip It starring Ellen Paige. Drew showed the final cut to her godfather, Steven Spielberg, who gave her notes.
Recently Spielberg gave her notes after she showed him a rough cut of "my first child," as she refers to Whip It. "I don't want to sell out the moment because it's so personal and private," she says, suddenly drawing a line. "It was very emotional for me. I was like, 'This is who I became because of your guidance.'" Spielberg considers the film a self-assured debut. "I was not surprised that she knew exactly where to put the camera," he says, "because at six years old she was telling me where she thought I should put the camera."
Speilberg says she has talent as a director, which may be one reason she's being considered to direct the third Twilight movie.
