December 17, 2015
10 Things You Never Knew About Drew Barrymore, Courtesy of Her Brand-New Book

In her memoir Wildflower, Barrymore reveals what it’s really been like living in the public eye your whole life.

In her new memoir Wildflower, Drew Barrymore opens up about her (truly) incredible journey—from child star to young woman in the spotlight to busy entrepreneur. Here, 10 things we learned from her fascinating book.

1. Barrymore’s ultimate role model used to be Pippi Longstocking.

Although she had posters of Blondie, Superman, and KISS on her walls as a kid, her true idol was Pippi Longstocking. “Every day in Pippi’s world was a chance to go down the Nile or fight pirates,” she writes. “She made you feel like there was nothing you couldn’t do if you put your mind to it.”

2. She scattered her dog’s ashes at Ghandi’s house in India.

Barrymore got her dog Flossy when she was 19 years old. She took Flossy and her other dog, Templeton, everywhere with her: movie sets, offices, road trips. So, when Flossy died, it hit her hard. “I took Flossy to India and gave her a proper and fitting send-off,” she writes. “The first place I spread some of her ashes was at Ghandhi’s house in New Delhi. Then I took her to a Buddhist monastery way up in the Himalayas. And third, I put the rest in the Ganges River off a quiet path in the countryside. I thanked her over and over for her companionship.”

3. Cameron Diaz is her daughter Frankie’s godmother.

Barrymore is still really tight with her Charlie’s Angels costar. She was one of Diaz’s bridesmaids and made Diaz her second daughter’s godmother.

4. She’s a daredevil.

Diaz and Barrymore have been on amazing adventures together, including training kung fu for Charlie’s Angels, scuba diving with sharks, and even sky diving.

5. Her scream broke the tape when she was auditioning for E.T.

When she was auditioning for E.T., which was originally called A Boy’s Life, in 1982, Steven Spielberg asked her to prove she had the vocal chops for the flick. “I screamed so loud that I broke the device and the tape stopped,” she writes. The audition scored her the life-changing role.

6. She gave Princess Diana an E.T. doll.

E.T. was such a massive international hit that Barrymore traveled all over the world to promote it. “All of a sudden, I was a girl with a stamped passport to my life’s wildest adventures,” she writes. “I was in Germany. Norway. Paris. England. I met Princess Diana and got to present her an E.T. doll.”

7. Flashing David Letterman was a huge turning point for her.

During her “self-discovery” period, Barrymore flashed late-night host Letterman while making an appearance on his show. At the time, it felt like a fun thing to do for laughs, but when she watched the tape later, something clicked. “As I watched myself and my friends laughing from an objective perspective, I realized right then and there that this was the end of an era for me,” she writes. “And so I started my journey into no sex scenes in movies, modesty clauses in my contracts, and a total lack of nudity in any public forum from there on out.”

8. She wants to be buried under an avocado tree.

When she was growing up in West Hollywood, Barrymore spent her afternoons playing under an avocado tree. “To say that I ate 10 avocados a day off that tree was no exaggeration,” she writes. “In fact the significance of the avocado tree is still as strong as can be for me. I even have it in my will that I want to be buried under one, or have some of my ashes put there.”

9. She just knew she was supposed to work with Adam Sandler.

So she followed her instinct and, when she was in her early 20s, she “begged, borrowed and stole to get him to sit down with me” at a coffee shop to see if they could come up with a comedy tailor-made for the two of them. That’s how The Wedding Singer was born. “I wanted us to be like an old-fashioned movie couple. He was my cinematic soulmate.”

10. She’s *very* protective of her plants.

After filming E.T., Barrymore has a traumatic memory of her mom calling in a gardener without warning her. “Someone had cut down the bougainvillea bush. I started to cry. This was beauty. This was nature,” she writes. “We had lived here for seven years and no one had pruned or manicured anything and everything was fine! … I felt like everything was crashing down around me.” Now she has a gardener who must consult with her before every snip.

You can buy Drew Barrymore’s book Wildflower on Amazon.

(Source)





December 11, 2015
Drew Barrymore Unveils Her 2015 Personalized Holiday Card

Looks like Drew Barrymore and her daughters have officially embraced the spirit of the season.

With the holidays right around the corner, the actress and Wildflower author, 40, has created a personalized holiday card this year via Shutterfly – and PEOPLE has the exclusive first look.

The festive card captures Barrymore’s free-spirited nature and devotion to daughters Olive, 3, and Frankie, 1. In one photo she is seen handing Olive a bouquet of wildflowers, while in the other she lies in the grass and laughs with Frankie.

The Miss You Already star keeps her look natural in the images, wearing a cream dress with little makeup and letting her long hair hang loose around her face.

To keep with the theme, the word “Joy” is spelled out with twigs and holly leaves, along with a small banner to mark the year.

In the far right corner, the card reads “Happy Holidays” and the actress simply signs it “love Drew.”

Along with her holiday cards, Barrymore also curated her own collection of personalized holiday gifts with Shutterfly. From ornaments to pillows and candles, the actress has selected her favorite items to give to those who matter most.

(Source)





December 11, 2015
Drew Barrymore Reveals the Presents She’s Giving Her Daughters This Holiday Season

Drew shares with InStyle what she is giving her girls for the holidays!

We’re sure Drew Barrymore knows exactly how to ring in the holidays with panache, but that doesn’t mean the actress, author, and mother of two celebrates the season with nonstop glitz and glamour. In fact, as she revealed Thursday night inside ACRIA’s 20th anniversary holiday dinner in New York, her family’s traditions are quite rudimentary.

“We open presents with all the kids, the cousins,” she told reporters at the event, which raised money for the HIV and AIDS research and education foundation through a silent auction.

“We go where it’s cold. It’s a big long family tradition, so everybody’s skiing. I’m not,” said actress—who is a parent to two daughters, Olive, 3, and Frankie, 1, along with husband Will Kopelman. “Actually, I’m hoping Uncle Harry will teach Olive this year. We [Barrymore and her sister-in-law Jill Kargman] are doing Zumba while everyone else is skiing.”

As for finding the right holiday gifts for the kids this year, the Flower Beauty founder is not stressed. So what items from their wish lists can the toddlers expect to receive? “They just want princess dresses,” Barrymore told InStyle. “I just got Olive a cash register for Hanukkah. And Frankie, a doctor’s kit. So I don’t know what they’re getting for Christmas yet. I really leave it till the last minute.”





December 11, 2015
Drew Barrymore On Why Women Can’t Have It All

One of the things I love the most about Drew is how she is passionate about life but also honest and open and realistic while being a dreamer. This interview with Forbes shows this side of her!

Drew Barrymore is at peace with the fact that women can’t “have it all—at least not in the same moment.” That’s a statement with the potential to ruffle some feathers. “I get in trouble for saying you have to make choices and therefore you may not get to do everything you want,” she says. Barrymore’s not suggesting that women can’t achieve both their career and personal ambitions—in fact, that’s exactly what she’s done since she was a teenager—she’s just a realist about the fact that life can get chaotic and complicated.

“I never hit the pillow thinking, ‘Yup, did it all today,’” says Barrymore. “I’m like, ‘Oh, phew! I think people at work don’t hate me today and my kids are feeling like Mom was there and this is good’…. It’s a hot mess and I need to make the best of it that’s possible!”

Barrymore does seem to be doing it all though with her impressive list of job titles. Mother. (She has two daughters, Olive and Frankie.) Entertainment mogul. (She was cast in her first film at 5-years-old, and has been a household name to Americans for decades thanks to her work as an actress, director, and producer.) Entrepreneur. (She founded the company Flower Beauty, an affordable line of cosmetics, as well as a production company called Flower Films, and she’s a partner in Barrymore Wines.) Barrymore recently added author to that list with the release of Wildflower, a collection of humorous and thoughtful first-person essays that recount a life in the public eye that’s been anything but ordinary.

But it’s in navigating the intense, often-competing demands of work and family that Barrymore’s life now resembles one that many women can relate to. Bouncing between the must-do’s at work and making sure she’s spending quality time with her daughters, Barrymore faces a daily routine that’s more of a triage situation than a balancing act—which doesn’t leave time for much else. “There’s your marriage. There are your friendships. There’s, God forbid, yourself for a minute. If I go do something for myself, even a workout, I feel so guilty,” Barrymore admits. “I don’t know what the answers are. In my life, I never feel like, ‘I’m doing it all, having it, feeling good about it. ’”

Barrymore has a unique and powerful perspective on the idea of balance, which she candidly discussed with me in a recent conversation about her new book, her entrepreneurial pursuits, and what’s it’s like to be an actress over the age of 40 in Hollywood.

Do What You Love

For Barrymore, pursuing a profession that you’re passionate about makes the tough parts—long hours, travel, whatever it is—feel like challenges to overcome instead of insurmountable roadblocks. “You should do what you love because you’ll want to do it. And you’ll want to do the work. It’s such a blessing in this world to do anything that you care about,” she says.

Her passions are storytelling and the process of creation. “I love words so much. And I love description,” says Barrymore, reflecting on writing her new book Wildflower. “To try to paint the picture of scenes and the rooms and the people was really fun for me because I love the art of how you color something with words.” Her other professional pursuits are equally stimulating. She calls the beauty company “storytelling to women.” And the wine business? “The wine is just ‘I like to drink wine,’” she laughs. “I think it works best when it’s business and pleasure all mixed into one.”

Getting Older Means Getting Better

Today, youth and beauty are celebrated almost obsessively­—perhaps nowhere more so than in Hollywood. But Barrymore’s take on age is refreshingly down-to-earth. “Every woman gets older if they’re lucky. It all ends and begins in diapers, if you’re lucky,” says to 40 year-old actress.

“So enjoy those wrinkles, embrace them.” She says she wouldn’t want to go back to being 17-years-old for anything. “I hope that I look like the most wrinkled saddle bag you’ve ever seen on planet Earth. And I’m just sitting there with my braids and my wisdom, drinking my wine and watching my grandkids. I hope that’s where my life ends up.”

Go With Your Gut

The 1996 horror film Scream opens with a chilling scene where Barrymore’s character dies. It was her idea to play the part—even though the role was too small for an actress of her caliber and reputation. Still, she knew in her gut that that if she played that character “it would feel like bets are off and it’d be even scarier.” She was right. “I just remember daring to make that phone call and share a gut instinct and an idea. And then we ended up going that way with it,” she remembers. “And I think that gave me confidence moving forward to share ideas and take risks. That one film call was pivotal to me. [It taught me to] dare to have a weird idea.”

Find Words To Live By

A conversation with Barrymore is peppered with life lessons and she has a few of her own mantras that inspire her every day. Number one: “The work is going to say things much louder than words do. Actions, not words, always. Don’t talk about anything until you do it.” “That’s always calmed me,” says Barrymore. “ I think, especially in this day and age, the quieter you are the louder you can be. Confidence is quiet and insecurity is loud.”

Another guiding mantra of hers comes from Abraham Lincoln: “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That is my religion.” Barrymore says, “Yes, that’s it. Check please!”





December 11, 2015
Drew Barrymore Focuses on Flower Beauty

Drew was featured in today’s issue of WWD.

The setting is the Surrey Hotel’s posh Presidential Suite in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but when Drew Barrymore comes bursting through the door, her glamsquad in tow, there’s nothing stuffy about her. Wearing jeans, a sweater and brown suede Ugg boots, she briskly directs her team where to set up, changes into something more suitable for photography and gets down to business.

That Barrymore is as focused as she is famous is no surprise. This is a woman who gets things done. In the last year alone, she’s starred in a movie, produced another, written a book (her third), all while overseeing her growing business concerns, including Flower Beauty and the launch of Flower Eyewear, and being a very present—and passionate—mother to her two young daughters.

Barrymore frequently talks about the flexibility afforded by running a business versus the time drain presented by movie production, but she does see some similarities between the two. “Color cosmetics is tough. It’s like movies in that you put in so many weeks, months and years of work for something that can feel short-lived and then it’s right back to work,” she says, snapping her fingers. “But I’m OK with that. I like the do-the-work aspect.” Barrymore’s hands-on approach seems to be paying off: Industry sources indicate Flower’s sales continue to blossom at Wal-Mart, and as the company gears up for 2016, plans call for the launch of e-commerce and international expansion.

Flower Beauty has been in stores for more than three years. How do you describe the growth?

It’s really good roots for the tree we want to grow, which will include multiple branches. The branches change with interests as I evolve as a person. There are branches, like hair or accessories, which seem like natural progressions and I have opened my mind up to things I had no idea I would be opening my mind up to when I started Flower Beauty.

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