Rolling Stone Magazine's Interview w/ Drew Barrymore
tmc_6882
magazine, compliments of Rolling Stone. The article is by Chris Heath
and the images are copyright to Mark Seliger. All is copyright to
Rolling Stone magazine.
The Naughty Adventures of Miss Drew Barrymore
In which our heroine risks life, limb and embarassment by falling
naked down a mountainside, sky-diving at 13,000 feet and swimming with
sharks in pursuit of true love.
By Chris Heath
In which Miss B buries her fears
To mark the new millennium, Drew Barrymore went to a small Hawaiian
island with friends. At midnight, after cooking food on a secluded
beach, they privately wrote down the resolutions they wished to make
on pieces of paper, which they then rolled up and set on fire. They
dug a hole in the sand, a few feet above the waterline, and buried the
ashes.
The following day, Barrymore jumped off a twenty-five-foot waterfall,
and though she was paranoid that there would be rocks under the water
and she would break her legs, she didn't. It was exhilarating. Wind,
she noted to herself, had never before felt like it did when you are
falling right through it. The following day, she jumped off a
fifty-foot waterfall, and though she was sick and nauseous before she
leapt, afterward she felt stronger.
Barrymore knew that, partly, all this was finding her way into how to
play her next role, Dylan, in Charlie's Angels. However lighthearted
the end result might be, she knew she needed to find something in
herself to appear as tough and cool and brave as she would need to
seem. That, to some extent, was why she kept prodding her terrified
self into Hawaiian midair.
But there were other things, too; things deep inside her that
Barrymore felt she had to deal with in order to be happier. She had
experienced a difficult 1999: a long relationship with actor Luke
Wilson had slowly unraveled, as co-producer she had nursed Charlie's
Angels through its drawn-out and often torturous planning stages, and
she had also been trying to come to terms with a few half-buried parts
of herself she may have ignored in the determined Barrymore rush to be
a joyful adult.
The words she wrote in Hawaii, and left behind to slowly stretch apart
in sand and ash and water, were these:
I will not fear anymore. I will not have the fear that is stopping me
from living.
Drew Barrymore was only one year old when Charlie's Angels went on the
air in 1976. She was a Kelly girl: "Jaclyn Smith just always had this
sort of calmness, not needing to prove herself and her sexuality and
her beauty; she just was that way. And I always thought that was so
hot. Kate Jackson's Sabrina was more tough and
I'm-not-letting-you-in-here. Farrah was a little bit more like
flirting effervescence. But Jaclyn just was . . . she had this great
confidence about her that I always thought was so sexy."
Barrymore and her producing partner, Nancy Juvonen, knew that Columbia
Pictures was developing a movie based on the TV show, and suggested
they get involved. At that time, there was a script they didn't like,
a futuristic tale about supermodels being cloned that they ditched.
They decided that the three Angels - Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu also
signed on - would be the latest recruits to the Townsend Detective
Agency. The story would be set in the present day, as if new women had
been joining and leaving ever since the TV series went off the air in
1981. In trying to set a distinct tone for the movie, they decided
that the Angels wouldn't use guns. Partly it was Barrymore's reaction
to school shootings - "People just sit behind their fucking weapons
and they flick a finger and they can kill somebody and it's so
cowardly" - but partly just because "I just feel like I've seen that
in so many movies." (Barrymore makes clear that this is not an
absolutist stance: She will pull the trigger in future movies when
appropriate.)
As soon as Barrymore and McG, the music-video director making his
feature debut with Charlie's Angels, began pinning down the
personalities and backgrounds of the three new Angels, Barrymore knew
which one she wanted to be.
"Dylan was the wild one who had been born into reform school," she
says. "She was the Wendy O of the Angels, completely badass, like
she's a hesher, an absolute rock & roll reform-school-girl hesher. A
hesher is like, rock & roll Rush-tank-top,
if-I-had-a-ball-sac-it-would-be-squeezed-severely-tightly-to-one-side-of-my-jeans
kind of show. Cheap motel jeans, as they called them. You know? No
ballroom."
Why did you fancy being the wild floozy?
"I fancied it because I have just played so many nice girls and losers
and girls who have never been kissed or barely know how to kiss or
puritans or these valiant, pure-intentioned, rarely-make-a-mistake
characters," says Barrymore, referring to her recent roles in The
Wedding Singer, Ever After and Never Been Kissed. "And I really wanted
to play someone who had a fucking drink, loved to have kind of a wild
night and also just had balls of steel. Would jump off a fucking
fifty-foot building and not question that she wasn't going to make it
OK because it wasn't about making it OK - that was a given. I wanted
to play a little bit of a badass, I wanted to play someone who was
unashamed and was in touch with her sexuality and in touch with her
bravery."
That's why Barrymore felt she had to do a little changing herself, to
become this woman: "I had to be fucking superhero-tough and capable,
ready for anything, able to handle anything, brave, no fears, totally
wild, balls-out, funny fucking rad-ass rock & roll fucking
play-my-air-guitar Dylan.
In which Miss B risks chocolate death for love
Near the end of the previous year, Barrymore arranged to meet comedian
Tom Green for a meal, to discuss playing a part in Charlie's Angels.
Her motives were already ulterior. "I was so crazy about him," she
says. "I don't watch television at all. He was the first person that I
was watching TV for in years. I just started hearing about him, and I
just turned on the TV one night, and there he was, and I just was . .
. my mind was blown."
When you saw him on TV, did you fancy him?
"Yes. I thought if I could just go on a date with this person I would
be so happy. His sense of humor and his cuteness . . . he was cute."
That's so sweet.
She laughs. "That's so stalkerish."
I was trying not to draw attention to that aspect of it.
"I just was a girl with a crush. It wasn't like the casting couch. I
met him with his manager and my director. It was all very civilized
and respectful. I was, 'Wow, if he would only ask me out.' That was
all I kept thinking [laughs]. But he didn't."
But later, after they had started filming in the new year, Green did
ask her out. That first time, he encouraged her to eat a chocolate
truffle. Barrymore never eats chocolate. "I know it's rich and pure
and beautiful, but it just tastes like caca. . . . It's like stomping
muddy combat boots that have been through mud and shit-piles on my
palate and taste buds." She still ate the truffle. "To try to impress
him," she says, laughing. It didn't work out. She describes her
post-truffle reaction: "Convulsing, literally. Grabbing onto walls.
Dry heaving." She thought she'd scared him off for good. That he'd be
thinking, "Whoa, I'm into crazy things, but you're being just too
wacky."
She was wrong. "I found love on this movie," Barrymore says. "I feel
like I fell in love with this really nice person, and this really nice
person has turned that kindness on me . . . and I only think about
what would make this person happy and how can I be the best girlfriend
to him, and how can I encourage him in his work and be spontaneous and
fun and adventurous and, most importantly, how can I be myself in all
of these things. I've had this ridiculous wish list that I've compiled
since I was a little girl, and for some amazing reason this person
fulfills all these wishes that I have. He's fun, he's adventurous, he
does work that I really admire, I feel like we can talk about our
lives and collaborate and inspire each other. I feel like I can tell
this person anything, and he doesn't judge me. I feel this sense of
calm, this lack of anxiety." And she says this: "I feel like I go to
sleep laughing and I wake up laughing."
Morton Davis
"tmc_6882" <tmc_...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:57679ca4.02111...@posting.google.com...
> The following is a section from the Nov. 4/2000 issue of Rolling Stone
> magazine, compliments of Rolling Stone. The article is by Chris Heath
> and the images are copyright to Mark Seliger. All is copyright to
> Rolling Stone magazine.
Again: Who gives a flying fuck?
-*MORT*-
M. Eglestone
Are you aware of the group title (talk.politics.guns) which you posted to?
If you are in love with Drew Barryymore, kindly direct your attention to
her fan club sites or a discussion group about the girl. This is the WRONG
PLACE for your posts.
--
- SMS Mike -
============
tmc_6882
> Are you aware of the group title (talk.politics.guns) which you posted to?
>
> If you are in love with Drew Barryymore, kindly direct your attention to
> her fan club sites or a discussion group about the girl. This is the WRONG
> PLACE for your posts.
This is the same person who declared that all guns were "cowardly"
during a string of interviews while making the movie "Charlie's
Angels" so this is relevant to the guns newsgroup!
tmc_6882
If you're going to respond, then I would suggest that you do it
without being profane or else you're sinking as low as the interview
that was first posted itself!
Yardpilot
> that the Angels wouldn't use guns. Partly it was Barrymore's reaction
> to school shootings - "People just sit behind their fucking weapons
> and they flick a finger and they can kill somebody and it's so
> cowardly"
So she's a psycho. I wouldn't go to the movie if you paid me.
tmc_6882
The problem that Drew Barrymore as well as other knee-jerk Hollywood
types like Sharon Stone & Rosie O'Donnell is that instead of strictly
holding the sadastic criminals, who they really should be catagorized
instead of hapless pawns for gun violence, responsible for their sick
acts, the inanimate firearms are used as the quick scapegoat.