Why You Don't Hear From Drew Barrymore Anymore

Actress Drew Barrymore grew up in the spotlight. She began as a child star, then became a Hollywood wild child. She was drinking and doing drugs when most girls are playing with Barbie dolls. Since then, she's had a few husbands, one very memorable incident on The Late Show with David Letterman, and a whole lot of drama. But what's she up to these days?

Barrymore's had a slew of high-profile relationships, including on-again-off-again romances with Justin Long and the Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti, as well as dating the likes of Edward Norton, Luke Wilson, Corey Feldman, David Arquette and director Spike Jonze through the years. She's also had two marriages which lasted barely a year each: to bar owner Jeremy Thomas from 1994 to 1995, and to comedian Tom Green from 2001 to 2002, according to People.

Her marriage to actor Will Kopelman ended in divorce in August 2016, but it was her longest, quietest, and most stable relationship to date. With Kopleman, Barrymore also started her family—they have two daughters together, Olive (born in September 2012) and Frankie (born in April 2014)—and made a conscious decision to step away from the spotlight.

In a 2015 interview with More magazine (via the New York Daily News), Barrymore said, "[I'm acting less] because the hours are too crazy [and] my phone isn't ringing off the hook with great parts." But she doesn't mind because the free time allows her to be with her kids, and manage other business pursuits. "I'll get in trouble for it, but I'll say it anyway: women can't do it all," the Santa Clarita Diet star said, adding, "Quantum physics actually says you can't do it all. Like, you can't do everything at every minute of every day; it's actually not mathematically, molecularly plausible."

In a 2016 interview with Parade, Barrymore declared that kids are her "whole life mission," a claim the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) star proves not only through charity work with organizations such as Safe Kids Worldwide and Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, but also through her career choices. Through the creation of her brands, Flower Beauty and Barrymore Wines (more on these in a bit), as well as a "décor line she's designing for Shutterfly," Barrymore feels that her diverse professional portfolio will open up worlds of opportunity for her girls.

"I don't want them to grow up on a movie set, but I figured if they came and saw beauty stuff and design stuff and some film stuff and some charity work stuff, it's good," Barrymore said, adding, "I really believe in parenting by example, so if they see me in multifaceted situations, I think that's positive."

Did we mention Barrymore's really into being a mom? Because, she's really into being a mom, which is somewhat due to the fact that she had a complicated relationship with her own parents, emancipating herself from her mother at just 14 years old.

"A stable, loving family is something that should absolutely, fundamentally never ever be taken for granted," Barrymore writes in her memoir, Wildflower. "I am lucky that I got dealt some cards that showed me what it's like to not have a family, and I am much luckier to now have the chance to create my own deck! I will fight like William 'Braveheart' what's-his-name to keep [my daughters] protected and intact! I am a warrior. I am a soldier. I am a not-to-be-messed-with lion! I am a mother!"

In an interview with Today in November 2014, Barrymore predicted that her desire to cultivate a family life would slow her career. "I think I will act less and less. It's hard to be present when you wake up before [the kids] and come home after they've gone to bed," the Charlie's Angels (2000) star said. "That's just not the way I want to have this journey with my kids at this point in their life. But maybe when they're older, I will feel differently. At this point, I think that it has to be few and far between."

Barrymore may not be acting as much these days, but she's produced a slew of projects with her production company, Flower Films, and she teamed up with TLC for the reality series Rattled, which examines how couples react to the first year of parenthood.

The production company (Barrymore's partnership with Jimmy Fallon's wife, Nancy Juvonen) has had hits with How to be Single (2016) starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson, which grossed more $112 million worldwide, and with Santa Clarita Diet, the Netflix series that Barrymore produces (and stars in.)

All of this behind-the-scenes success translates to Barrymore having a reported net worth of around $125 million. In other words: Barrymore will be doing just fine even if she never collects a paycheck for acting ever again.

If you've noticed that you don't hear as much from Barrymore, nor see much of her—specifically her body—on screen, that's not a coincidence. The actress had something of a "come to Jesus moment" after she flashed David Letterman on-air in 1995 and realized she needed to cool it.

In Wildflower, she recalls the viral (before viral was a thing) moment: "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. 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."

While her decision is certainly a respectable one that we applaud, it may limit acting opportunities–even for a star of Barrymore's magnitude. However, we suspect she's totally cool with that.

When Barrymore does choose to dive back onto the silver screen, don't expect her to be donning superhero tights or battling intergalactic foes. Speaking with Popsugar, Barrymore said that her approach to new material is now inspired strictly by—you guessed it—her suburbanite life.

"I would not know what to do if you put me in outer space," she said, addressing her fear of taking on projects where she has limited creative access to the material. "I'd be like, 'Where the f**k am I?' I love science fiction. I'm all for it, but I would be lost as an actor. Make it in a backyard, in a house in a suburbia, and I'm good to go."

There are a lots of movie and TV projects that are set in suburbia, but there are also plenty more that are not. Though we've already established that Barrymore has both the means and the motivation to be as choosy as she likes, for an actress to have this attitude toward future prospects, is like a waitress saying, "I'll be glad to serve customers, but only if they're willing to eat dinner in my apartment."

What does that have to do with Barrymore? Glad you asked. In case you missed it, Sandler and Barrymore have teamed up for three movies: The Wedding Singer (1998), 50 First Dates (2004), and Blended (2014). Each collaboration steadily declined in the eyes of critics, with Blended garnering a dismal 14 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

On his own, Sandler hasn't been improving the chances for a new Barrymore collaboration. His string of Netflix flops, The Ridiculous 6 (2015), The Do-Over (2016), and Sandy Wexler (2016), could be indicators that audiences are so sick of him, even the nostalgia to watch him comedically romance Barrymore again may be gone. That closes yet another door for the one-time rom-com queen.

Barrymore launched the cosmetics line Flower Beauty in 2013. Though she's not the forward face of the company, like she was for CoverGirl, Barrymore is the creative force behind the brand that's gone international within its highly lucrative and proprietary Walmart distributorship. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Barrymore explained that her role as a CoverGirl brand rep wasn't the only experience she had with makeup: her work in film actually helped her prepare for a beauty line.

"I think they are very similar because both are about storytelling and marketing," she said. "I was co-creative director at CoverGirl for seven years and it was a miracle of the stars aligning that when that contract was ending Carmen Bauza [Walmart senior vice president of health and wellness] called me...to create a beauty line for her store. I was able to tell Carmen the story of what Flower Beauty would be through images and through a film reel that I made for her. I feel something when I make movies... Both storytelling and heart really apply to beauty and film."

The brand is so successful that it has become the "No. 1 brand sold" in nearly 4,000 Walmart stores, according to the New York Post.

Barrymore has also dipped into the wine business with Barrymore Wines, her line of signatures vintages crafted with Carmel Road and vintner Kris Kato. According to an interview with HuffPost, this is no "celebrity publicity sort of name slapping endeavor." In fact, Carmel reportedly approached Barrymore when she was "in Italy studying Pinot Grigio" as part of her quest to learn how to make Italian wine.

Barrymore and Kato have crafted a rosé, a pinot noir, and a pinot grigio under the Carmel label. For the Big Miracle (2012) actress, the process is more about creative fulfillment than it is about profit. "We are trying to pace ourselves smartly," she said. "We're not a partnership that's a one wine star. I think we're finding ourselves along the way. We're all about integrity and just trying to deliver something delicious, lovely and memory making."

Not only is Barrymore appearing less on screen, but she even scaled back on her directorial efforts to maintain a steady home life with her daughters. "You know that you're going to miss out on your child's upbringing or you realize that your relationship is going to suffer if you work night and day and weekends," she told Us Weekly.

"I would miss out on my daughter. I can't do it," she continued. "It was heartbreaking to let go, but it was a clear choice. As my daughter gets older, I'll slowly get back into it. I'm never not going to be who I am. I'll never abandon ship completely."

When Santa Clarita Diet landed in Barrymore's lap, she was literally in the middle of her divorce from Kopelman, but the optics of their split, which by most accounts appeared as friendly as divorces can possibly be, didn't turn into a tabloid nightmare. That reportedly left her feeling safe enough to dip her toe back into the world of super stardom.

"Ironically, it wasn't the worst timing. It was great. It was really happy. It was a good summer. My daughters and I got to go out to California and I got three days off a week," she told The Guardian of her surprisingly chill experience shooting the first season of the Netflix zombie comedy.

She also felt that playing the character of Sheila, a suburban wife whose life gets turned inside out when she inexplicably develops a taste for human flesh, was something of a catharsis. "I feel like Sheila. I feel like maybe I was dead inside," Barrymore told The Guardian. "I don't know. I was in a place in my life where I had gained a lot of weight, and been in a place of fear and sadness, and I felt stuck. I don't think that's so much unlike the character."

Okay, so maybe nobody tell Kopelman that his ex-wife possibly just compared the dissolution of their marriage with her turning into a flesh-eating monster.