EW.com did this interview with Drew where she talks about working on Refinery 29, being a mom to Olive and her new film Blended.
Multi-hyphenate Drew Barrymore — actor, producer, winemaker, beauty mogul — can add fashion editor to her resume. Barrymore has signed on as editor at large for lifestyle website Refinery 29 and her first post goes live later this morning.
“My friends and I love sites like Refinery. I’m so excited about the fun of being a contributor,” Barrymore — who will write lifestyle-focused posts covering topics like entertainment, food, motherhood, and wellness — told EW. “I love getting information and getting direction in life. I also love giving it, but I just didn’t have a venue [to share].” Barrymore will work closely with Refinery 29 editor in chief Christene Barberich to develop content for her ongoing monthly column.
Read on for an exclusive Q&A with Barrymore and an excerpt from her debut post — on why she finally learned how to cook and her recipe for the perfect breakfast sandwich — for Refinery 29.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why did you decide to accept the job offer from Refinery 29?
Drew Barrymore: I have no internet savvy whatsoever, but I love researching things. The Internet is my library… beyond that, I’m completely intimidated by it. If I can look up the best places to have breakfast in a city or research an old book… I love that aspect. I love when I trust the curation, when you see a site and you’re like, “I love their taste, I know I’m in a safe zone here.” I feel that way about Refinery 29.
You’re going to be dishing out advice in some of your pieces, who do you turn to when you need advice?
It totally depends on the subject. If I need French patio furniture, I will call up my friend Gucci Westman. She has great taste and knows everything about everything. If I need a doctor, I’m calling my friend Robin, who is always in touch with the best specialists everywhere. Right now, I would love to come across a top ten list of best books for toddlers, but I’m actually dying to write that list. I’m pitching it to Refinery as we speak to see if they’re interested in it as one of my pieces. I just spent the afternoon in a children’s book store and I couldn’t believe how many of the books I knew and had been reading to my daughter and have opinions about and would love to share with people. They’re not just books from my past. They’re my books now as a parent that I love reading to my daughter and carry with me everywhere because it’s like the best crutch in the world to have a book with you. They become these great tools in life.
Refinery 29 is a lifestyle site, how would you describe your lifestyle?
Most of my life I’ve just worked. Life has been so in the backseat that it’s always been about film or a film production, producing, acting, every little detail that goes into filmmaking. [My work has ] slowed down because I didn’t know honestly how to have a life under those circumstances. I mean, when you’re on a film, you’re out in the middle of nowhere working 18 hours a day and it’s really hard to have a life. I really commend people who seem to balance it. I’m not sure how they do because I wasn’t. Now that I’ve carved out a little more time for myself in life, I find that the passion and the interest and the discussions have come much more in the center.
You also have a photography book titled Find It in Everything coming out on January 14th. When did you get into photography?
Exactly twenty years ago, when I was 19, I picked up an old, tiny, automatic Yashica camera and I just started shooting. We didn’t have iPhones back then, we didn’t even have cell phones. I loved having a camera in my hand. Then I was given Pentax K1000 for my 25th birthday and I fell in love [because] it was not this automatic little bullet, but this really interesting, like “learn how to load film and learn apertures [thing].” Most importantly, it allowed for happy mistakes, happy accidents. Like too much light would get into the frame, but it would look so cool. Or learning different speeds of film — I never went anywhere without 3200 speed film because I knew it could shoot at night in a party and look really great. I fell in love with the whole thing. I totally struggle with it now because of the friggin’ iPhone. Life is not the same anymore, so now I do photography more professionally rather than as a hobby. But along the way, along those 20 years, I would take pictures of things I found with heart shapes in them. The heart is much like a flower. It really just has almost zero negativity to it. Life is such a double-edged sword, everything has a polarity. But hearts and flowers are some of the safest, greatest things in life. I guess I’m just drawn to them. I love jokes, but God, jokes can go so wrong. I have stayed up many nights thinking, “Fuck. I can’t believe I made that silly little joke. That was a disaster.” But I like things where you don’t question yourself so much. That’s a good thing.
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