#1
Little Edie returning back home and seeing the early stages of Grey Gardens' decline:
Barrymore stayed in character during the initial rehearsals at the actual Grey Gardens and through the entire seven-and-a-half-week shoot in Toronto in 2007, refusing all contact with even her closest friends, save for her then boyfriend, actor Justin Long, who visited the set once or twice. Being Edie from age 18 to 60 involved wigs, prosthetics and five hours of daily makeup. Wanting to feel as cut off from the world as Edie had, she didn’t use her cell phone or laptop or watch TV, and she read only Edie’s journals and favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, The Marble Faun. The actress insisted that everyone on set call her Edie, and as Edie, composed journal entries and letters to Long on a typewriter. (Her best friend and producing partner, Nancy Juvonen, sent Barrymore a formal letter, addressed to Edie, to invite her to her wedding to Jimmy Fallon.) Fearing she might "snap," Sucsy recalls, he suggested she return to playing Drew on Saturdays. Her dresser, Kent Cummins, an old friend of hers, confided to Sucsy, "Even the Saturday-night Drew wasn’t the full Drew."
More complicated was mastering Edie’s idiosyncratic cadences. Barrymore worked with a dialect coach for a year before shooting began, learning to project forward, and not speak out of the right side of her mouth, as is her habit. "She’s always brought so much of herself to her parts," says close friend, Cameron Diaz. "This was the first time she was able to leave all of that behind."
Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the younger 'Big' Edie and 'Little' Edie:
Posted: 3/9/09 at 10:34pm
Little Edie returning back home and seeing the early stages of Grey Gardens' decline:
Barrymore stayed in character during the initial rehearsals at the actual Grey Gardens and through the entire seven-and-a-half-week shoot in Toronto in 2007, refusing all contact with even her closest friends, save for her then boyfriend, actor Justin Long, who visited the set once or twice. Being Edie from age 18 to 60 involved wigs, prosthetics and five hours of daily makeup. Wanting to feel as cut off from the world as Edie had, she didn’t use her cell phone or laptop or watch TV, and she read only Edie’s journals and favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, The Marble Faun. The actress insisted that everyone on set call her Edie, and as Edie, composed journal entries and letters to Long on a typewriter. (Her best friend and producing partner, Nancy Juvonen, sent Barrymore a formal letter, addressed to Edie, to invite her to her wedding to Jimmy Fallon.) Fearing she might "snap," Sucsy recalls, he suggested she return to playing Drew on Saturdays. Her dresser, Kent Cummins, an old friend of hers, confided to Sucsy, "Even the Saturday-night Drew wasn’t the full Drew."
More complicated was mastering Edie’s idiosyncratic cadences. Barrymore worked with a dialect coach for a year before shooting began, learning to project forward, and not speak out of the right side of her mouth, as is her habit. "She’s always brought so much of herself to her parts," says close friend, Cameron Diaz. "This was the first time she was able to leave all of that behind."
Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore as the younger 'Big' Edie and 'Little' Edie:
