Her radically intimate daytime show is as much therapy for her as it is for her guests.
Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Drew Barrymoreisbarreling barefoot down the hallway to make it to the studio on time.
She can hear you!
before leading them in an increasingly rapid call-and-response: Are you ready?
Her costume designer, Lee Harris, is waiting at the threshold with chunky beige platform heels.
Feel that, she tells Harris, lifting the leg of her pants to reveal smooth, hairless skin.
(She finally had time to shave.)
Ooh, once in a lifetime, he replies as he buckles her shoe.
she yells, and the hilarious Ross Mathews, her co-anchor on Drews News, appears by her side.
Im questioning the mirror I got you for the dining room, she says.
The size is right, but she feels the cream-and-gold frame is fighting with the floral wallpaper.
So maybe something grassy?
Anyway, 20 seconds!
They dive into the crowd.
The major event of the day is an interview withJennifer Garner, whose birthday Barrymore wants to celebrate.
She describes Garner as a woman who really saved her.
Heres a $250,000 donation to the charity Save the Children!
She has some things she wants to confess, like maybe she screwed up the interview they just watched.
I will just be totally honest with you guys, she says.
Making this show makes me have these personal whirlwinds.
So she would feel her feelings here, come what may.
And hope I didnt put anyone else in an uncomfortable situation.
The shouts start coming:No, Drew!
She takes it in.
screams an audience member.
If she could, she would relive this moment over and over again.
She wants to encourage everyone to just risk it and let that class-A weirdo inside you out.
So thank you for that life-affirming truth.
Her longtime therapist Barry Michels would call this active love.
(Its very popular in Hollywood.)
Its a world thats almost dense with loving energy.
Right at that moment, youre the principal leader of love in the whole universe.
I really hard-launched on her.
She pours me her mom drink seltzer over pebbled ice with a splash of cranberry juice.
On Fridays, she usually works from home.
She made it by about 20 seconds before Tommy, the bus driver, arrived.
He doesnt like me, she whispers.
She pulls out video evidence of herself jamming under mauve lighting, which she will send to Garner.
The answer: Hard cardio.
By the way, no, I did not reach hard cardio, Barrymore says.
But I honored what she said by doing it.
Its a good thing: Honor people by doing the work.
She gives me a tour of the rest of her apartment.
On the kitchen counter, Turner Classic Movies plays silently on a monitor she calls the family portal.
They come and visit me, she says.
Good morning, Grandma and Grandpa!
Her daughters presence is everywhere: drawings, photos, a playroom for Frankie.
It begins, 1.
SOME THINGS ARE NONNEGOTIABLE.
Like, Cant do anything else until homework is finished, she says.
Homework, dinner, bath.
Having her daughters changed how Barrymore oriented her life.
She felt further removed from acting.
marriage and kids, she says.
At 37, she married Kopelman, an art consultant and son of the former president of Chanel.
I think thats why I took the marriage so hard, she says.
Because I was the best I could have ever been.
But she stopped drinking for two years, which convinced Michels to take her back.
Because I am the strongest Ive ever been.
Which was so great because the divorce convinced me I couldnt handle things.
We have been told we were DOA dead on arrival almost every year by higher-ups, Barrymore says.
The show spoke to us odd birds, but it wasnt necessarily speaking to a commercial audience.
It premiered live on September 14, 2020, in a pre-vaccinated New York without a studio audience.
Barrymore, who has the energy of an entire studio audience, made do.
The first season is a kind of effervescent fever dream a time capsule of a madness-induced pandemic culture.
I knew we werent reaching our potential in year one, she says.
It was a public-access show on premium television.
As she said in her opening monologue, I am who you think I am.
Then last year, during the summer hiatus, something happened.
Well, specifically, two videos happened.
She suspects one wall may be hiding something: a window.
I knew there was a window here, she says.
The tears start flowing.
We just record everything, says Corinna Shapiro, her personal social-media coordinator.
Because you never know if theres a good moment.
She will lie on the floor, crawl on her knees, and sit on peoples laps mid-conversation.
These moments have inspired memes about how a Drew Barrymore interview is like two eyeballs touching.
Barrymore is both the text and the interpreter of the show.
When Mathews tells her, You were on red carpets.
You were gorgeous as a teenager, right?
she replies, I was in mental institutions, too.
Weve taken a seat in a small walk-in closet in her bedroom.
There are longer, more diaristic reflections that read like ecstatic poetry: LISTEN TO MY BODY AND SOUL.
TREAT MYSELF AS THE MOTHER I NEEDED.
DO NOT BEAT MYSELF UP.
This is her meditation room, her room of revelations.
She can come here and shut the door and be totally quiet.
Any conversation with Barrymore will invariably return to the topic of her therapist.
So many of the cards are about the shadow, she adds.
Whereas other Jungian archetypes define how we see the world, the shadow is about how we see ourselves.
No amount of validation can eliminate your Shadow, write Stutz and Michels.
The goal is integration, holding hands with your shadow.
Im still very much in survival, persevere, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other mode.
And I still dont understand my own childhood, maybe.
Everyone knows the story: Drew was 7 years old whenE.T.became the biggest blockbuster of its time.
It caused a split in her life: Home and school were miserable, but work was fortifying.
It became her constant, the thing she was good at and could learn to self-generate.
It provided both freedom and structure and adults who adored her.
The director was a ready-made parent.
A couple of weeks into shooting, Drew noticed the men operating E.T.
behind a wall and told Spielberg to kick them out.
I didnt want to burst the bubble, Spielberg tells me.
So I simply said, Its okay, E.T.
is so special E.T.
I am the director, I only have one.
In an effort not to break the spell, Spielberg shot the entire movie in strict continuity.
He kept a couple of operators on hand so the alien could react to her.
Drew would have lunch with E.T.
and tell him her secrets.
She asked Spielberg if he could be her dad.
He said no, so she asked if he could be her godfather.
(He agreed.)
When she walked into the office wearing red lipstick, he told her to wipe it off.
Yet I felt very helpless because I wasnt her dad.
I could only kind of be a consigliere to her.
He was an abusive drunk who abandoned her mother, Ildiko Jaid Barrymore.
He would do things like hold her hand over a candle and say that pain is in the imagination.
He would usually reappear when he needed money.
He became an itinerant eccentric, houseless and shoeless, using lemons and olive oil to bathe.
Talk about someone who was not a careerist, Barrymore recalls.
He was like, I will burn this fucking dynasty to the ground.
Jaid, her tenacious mother-manager, treated her like a friend and client.
They would go to industry parties, nightclubs, Studio 54, Limelight.
With no one to say no, Drew was uninhibited.
When she got out, she lived withDavid Crosbyand his wife, Jan Dance.
As a person, she enlists you into her thoughts and personal dramas.
She did not have a good reputation, says Davis.
But she came in and said, Nobody takes me seriously.
I want to prove that I can come back.
And I just melted.
I immediately was like, Oh my God, I love you.
I will do anything I can to help you out.
I felt like she was kind of our daughter, says Davis.
Barrymores stint inrehab was the first time she learned, in therapyspeak, how to do the work.
Every Wednesday night, there was group.
Here, her traumas werent unique.
Families came, and you would have to discuss your most personal details in front of other people.
They would cheer you on, listen quietly, cry, or call bullshit.
She stonewalled before learning to embrace the communal experience of it.
Listening to other peoples stories allowed her to reconsider her own family dynamics.
Radical honesty was possible here.
(The layout ended up being more like a horseshoe.)
But if I think about those Wednesday nights, thats exactly what we were doing.
Barrymores interviews often sound like therapy shes more life coach than journalist.
She doesnt press for details because she knows what its like to be hounded about your personal life.
Barrymore knows she has an elliptical interviewing style.
Talking to her is a bit like watching a bumblebee fly to its target shell get there.
Its collaborating and being open to everything and trying to take it all in, she says.
But I definitely get lost out there sometimes.
She could probably talk for hours and hours can they edit that?
The flash of vulnerability catches you off guard.
Theres nothing in Drews eyes that says, Say something that the audience will like, says Ritter.
Shes just sitting there with you.
The most intense conversations have revolved around the complexity of mother-daughter relationships.
Barrymores own with her mother is a wound that has never really healed.
As she grew older, her attitude toward her father softened.
I just understood what an incapable human being he was, she says.
When he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, she paid for his hospice care until he died in 2004.
Then she spread his ashes around Joshua Tree.
I know that must be so hard for my mom, she says.
Its like she gets all the heartache and he gets given a free ticket.
(It did so well online that producers eventually cut a version to run on TV.)
Still, she speaks in slightly ambiguous terms, working things out in her mind without revealing too much.
Knowing Barrymores own history lets the viewer fill in the gaps.
Do I have to wait to tell all my truths?
she asks McCurdy at one point.
I dont know if I can do it because certain people are alive.
Okay, Im having anaha moment, Barrymore replies.
Maybe its protectiveness that I feel.
Ive never put it in those terms in my head.
Her relationship with her mother is an inevitability in our conversations.
Weve moved over to the big living-room couches surrounded by walls of books.
The sounds of distant neighbors softly float up through the sheer curtains.
All their moms are gone, and my moms not, she says.
And Im like,Well, I dont have that luxury.But I cannot wait.
I actually want her to be happy and thrive and be healthy.
But I have to fucking grow in spite of her being on this planet.
An hour after the words leave her mouth, she already regrets suggesting any ill will toward her mom.
I dared to say it, and I didnt feel good, she says.
Ill never not care.
This, after all, is not the Barrymore way: She has an anti-victim mentality.
It is part of the arc that has brought her here.
I want to see it as the things I did and chose to do.
Im not attracted to people who lay blame on others.
I dont find it sexy.
Ive been a circus bear my whole life.
But maybe I have a point, she concedes.
When will I ever give myself a fucking break?
What would it be like to be empathetic toward that little girl?
Barrymore hasbeen swiping on Raya, but she cant gin up the interest.
Since the divorce, she hasnt really dated a 180 from her prior life.
I was such a love junkie, she says.
I was almost never not single.
She turned down parts like Rollergirl inP.
Im like, D, I dont understand why you keep being put in these dark movies.
You need a romantic comedy, Juvonen recalls.
You are mushy, its annoying.
You should share this with the world.
And, maybe more acutely, the desire to be in love.
After they filmed a sex scene, he was smitten.
She hypnotized him, and its like,Forget it, says Davis, who directed the film.
I spent a lot of my life loving romance and drama and all of that, Barrymore says.
I just burnt myself out on it.
I genuinely am tired and exhausted.
Men are something of a black box for her something shes been reluctant to explore even with Michels.
Im curious to examine why Im not open to a relationship, she says.
I really think I have some serious shit buried.
But then she thinks maybe shes good.
If theres one thing about the Drewniverse, its that people tend to stay in it.
Before Barrymores wedding to Kopelman, Davis had a wave of deja vu at the rehearsal dinner.
The family had changed.
My deepest lifelong search.
Its a Thursday morning in May, and the show has officially wrapped for the summer.
Were sitting in her kitchen nook, the one with the hidden window.
I was like, Maybe we will, Bear.
I have to leave you with a maybe.
Little Kitty, a skinny black cat, is splayed out like a fashion model.
Oh, you are just production designed for this space!
The exposed concrete walls give the space a raw, open feeling.
Olive thinks Ive lost it, she says.
Shes still in her silk nightie with a sweater on top.
The question of empathy and forgiveness has been on Barrymores mind since we first spoke.
You had such an effect on me that day.
She often strives to meet other peoples standards what would Spielberg do?
What would Michels say?
Would Jennifer Garner consider this hard cardio?
as part of her self-improvement plan.
Our interview becomes another opportunity for growth and self-reflection.
Call it an act of transference.
Writing the blog post and texting her mom were both part of making an effort, she says.
I was really excited I could tell you Ive done some serious work and I do feel different.
I forgive my mom.
I forgive my dad.
Ive never forgiven myself, but Id like to and Im ready to.
The shadow is … a shadow.
Its opaque, shaped like a shroud, and oddly beautiful.
How old is she?
Shes ageless, she says.
I dont always know her voice.
I dont always know what shes saying or wants.
What do I do?
What do I do?
Over the next hour yes, shes working this out in real time she tries to reach her.
She visualizes rooms from her childhood where she used to live with her mom and crazy shit happened.
There are so many things she cannot say, will not say, but she can feel them.
She closes her eyes.
She could give them grace and the childhood she never had, but she couldnt grant that to herself.
She is speaking to herself.
Or maybe to her shadow.
She opens her eyes.
And you asked when I would ever forgive myself, she says to me.
That is the work.
I have to forgive myself for not knowing exactly what to do at certain times.
Tears are streaming down her face, and she looks beatific in the morning light.
Her shadow is in the room with us now, she says, and shes smiling.
here comes another revelation Shes like, I amyou,dumbass.
Barrymore starts to laugh light, cathartic guffaws.
Her assistant peeks her head in to confirm everything is okay.
She has maintained her capacity for wonder to allow herself to be overwhelmed by feeling.
Shes so happy because I just learned something, Barrymore says, smiling.
She wipes away her tears.
Im going to bring this to Barry on Monday.
Production Credits
Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
