Dress by Emanuel Ungaro. Earrings by Laura Lee. Cuff from Kabiri of London.
It's safe to say that Drew Barrymore is all grown up. Since her debut at age six in 1982’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, she’s inhabited roles in a long line of quirky, spirited films (Scream, The Wedding Singer, Home Fries, Donnie Darko, Music and Lyrics). She’s also become involved in all aspects of her craft, heading her production company, Flower Films, with her business partner of nearly 15 years, Nancy Juvonen (wife of Jimmy Fallon), and directing the film Whip It!, due out this year. This month, it’s back to acting. Her emotional intelligence, dedication, and unmitigated talent converge in a role that is sure to be memorable: “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale in HBO’s Grey Gardens.
The movie is a riches-to-rags love story of a mother (“Big Edie,” played by Jessica Lange) and daughter whose lives disintegrate into utter squalor and abject folly at Grey Gardens, their Lily Pond Lane beachfront estate in East Hampton. Little Edie, the cousin of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, was a vivacious, yet fragile, aristocratic young woman. And Barrymore plays her with precision and dignity—as evidenced by the resounding parallels to the real Edie, who starred in the cult favorite 1976 documentary Grey Gardens by brothers Albert and David Maysles. One barely notices the film’s time warp—the aging debutante is 61 by the film’s end—and Barrymore’s drive for authenticity is evident and effective.
GOTHAM: What was it like to “become” Little Edie?
DREW BARRYMORE: It’s very difficult to play somebody who’s so absolutely uptight with fear and upset and regret over the decisions they’ve made in life—wanting to get out and do things differently, but then constantly doing everything the same and being a walking contradiction. She’s also wildly entertaining and flirtatious and fun and outgoing and energetic. It’s a weird dichotomy, playing someone whose attitudes and emotions and feelings run such a gamut. I walked a very fine line, trying to keep all my emotions readily available. I felt tense inside my stomach all the time, playing her.
G: Was this the role of a lifetime for you?
DB: Of my lifetime so far, absolutely. It’s the best, most thrilling opportunity I’ve ever gotten, and I took it so beyond seriously. I didn’t speak on the phone or watch television or read the newspaper and BlackBerry or speak to my family or one friend for three months.
G: That’s dedication!
DB: I couldn’t believe in my own luck being her—I wanted to feel what she did.
G: She has a very distinct voice that would seem difficult to mimic.
DB: I don’t sound anything like her. That was one of my biggest fears, because I talk in the back of my throat and I speak out of the side of my mouth and she speaks from the very front of her lips and very forward. So I worked with a vocal coach for a year before we even started shooting, and then trained every day while I was at work on not only how to figure out her voice but how to get away from the things that are normal for me. I completely retrained my facial structure so I’d speak not only in the sound of her voice, but in the facial structure that she worked from.
