At 39 years old, it's safe to say Drew Barrymore has been through a lot. Though her famously turbulent childhood included rehab at the age of 14 and getting emancipated at 15, the "Charlie's Angels" actress is clearly in a happy, more settled down place these days. Married to art consultant Will Kopelman since June 2012, Drew's now a mom to her adorable daughters Olive, 2, and Frankie, who turns one in April.
In a new interview with MORE Magazine, Drew reflects on her unconventional adolescent years, and how it will affect how she raises her own daughters.
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"I was a happy, blithering idiot," she says about her childhood. "I don't know how to feel differently about it because I don't know what another life would be like, so it's hard to pretend or imagine or wish that it was different because it isn't. Even if I was a bad girl at moments here and there, I was never a bad person."
However, unlike her own experience, she vows to be there for Olive and Frankie.
"I didn't really have parents, you know?" she admits. "And therefore the kind of parent I will be is a good, present parent. In a way, maybe that was a detriment to my youth, but it'll be the biggest asset to my adulthood."
As for her own shaky relationship with her mother, Jaid Barrymore, Drew reveals that she's actually the one who plays caretaker.
"[I] look after her," she says. "That is how I feel good about [our relationship]."
But Drew, who besides being an actress is also a producer and beauty mogul with her own company, Flower Beauty, is the first to admit that she struggles with her own work-life balance.
"I'll get in trouble for it, but I'll say it anyway: Women can't do it all," she says bluntly. "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. [However,] I do think that women can do everything they want to do, especially if they work hard enough at it. I don't believe anything comes easy. You have to earn everything in life."
Part of Drew doing everything she wants to do has meant taking a step back from acting and focusing more on her beauty company at the moment.
"I love the beauty industry because even on a workday I can wake up with my kids, go to work, come home, bedtime -- there's a normal life there," she explains. "And it’s exciting when you have to go on a business trip, as opposed to a film where you’re gone for months. I can't do that right now. As you add more onto your plate, particularly family, things have to fall off, or you won't be a good parent."
She also admits that another reason she’s stepped back from acting is that she hasn’t been offered the greatest film roles. Her last film "Blended," in which she reunited with her "Wedding Singer" co-star Adam Sandler, was both a commercial and critical bomb.
"The hours are too crazy [and] my phone isn't ringing off the hook with great parts," she says about her noticeable on-screen absence.
But one role she did decide to take is "Miss You Already," opposite Toni Collette. The film, which centers on a friendship between two life-long girlfriends that's put to the test when one starts a family and the other falls ill, is due out later this year.
"Toni is one of the greatest actresses," she gushes.
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