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In a new interview with W magazine, perennially happy-go-lucky actress Drew Barrymore talks about her latest role as eccentric American socialite Edith Bouvier “Little Edie” Beale in the upcoming HBO film Grey Gardens and reveals that she has “so much darkness” which she was able to tap into for the role.

Barrymore says, “Playing Edie, I felt like s—. I thought, I’m afraid beyond anything I’ve ever known. I’m miserable; I’m scared; I feel sick all the time. And I was like, Good! At least I have somewhere to put it. You know what? I’m not f—in’ happy all the time. I like making people feel good, but it was great not to have to please anybody. I was out there for myself and for her.”

According to the article, Barrymore went Method for the role, insisting that people call her “Edie” on set and isolating herself from the outside world by refusing to watch television, use her laptop, or make calls on her cell phone. The experience, she says, was not unlike her two childhood stints in rehab (recalled in her 1990 autobiography Little Girl Lost). “I got institutionalized as a kid, and I felt like I was back there. A lot of times I found myself unhappy and isolated, and the only other time I felt that way was when I was in there. It was absolutely trying to relearn to live. You are learning to become someone else,” she says.

To read more about Barrymore’s preparation for the role and her terse relationship with her parents,
visit W magazine: http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2009/04/drew_barrymore.