Drew Barrymore, the longtime Hollywood actress known for her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and more recently for such projects as Beverly Hills Chihuahua, will be the first celebrity to race the electric Ford Focus as part of her visit with Jay Leno on Friday during the first week of his new NBC show.

Ford spokesman Mark Schirmer confirmed on Wednesday that Barrymore landed the gig with the electric Ford Focus, a precursor of the production version that is due out in 2011. When asked by Inside Line if Ford — a show sponsor — had hand-picked the celebrity, Schirmer said no. “We don’t choose the driver,” he said in a text message. “That is Leno.” Barrymore is a bit of a surprise pick, given that she is not known as a car enthusiast.

The electric Ford Focus will be used as a regular feature on the new Leno program. Celebrities will compete for the best lap times in the car, in a setup similar to one on the British car show Top Gear.

Ford appears to have landed a winner with the setup. Leno’s new show premiered to 18.4 million viewers and a 20-percent share on Monday, drawing the biggest prime-time TV audience since Fox’s American Idol finale, according to media reports.

Source:  Edmunds.com

Some people seem to have all the luck. Include in that group actress, producer and now director, Drew Barrymore.

But having luck and doing something with it are two different things, and as early reviews trickle in for Barrymore’s directorial debut, girl power flick “Whip It,” it seems the offspring of a Hollywood legend has found a new career.

“Whip It,” a tale of one young woman defying her mother’s wish of beauty pageant stardom for the rough-and-tumble sport of roller derby, debuted Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, and by Monday was being called a “remarkable debut” by show business newspaper The Hollywood Reporter.

Variety said the movie was “a gas” and Screen International weighed in with “Drew Barrymore seems less concerned with crafting a riveting cinematic experience as she is in creating a good time. On that criterion, she has succeeded.”

A girl — or boy — could do a lot worse.

“I was so impressed with her as a director because she knew what she wanted to see. She really had a strong visual sense of the movie,” said Juliette Lewis, who portrays the hard-charging Iron Maven skater on the Holy Rollers team in “Whip It.”

“I really feel like I was making the first movie of a young filmmaker,” said Lewis.

Barrymore, of course, is the daughter of John Drew Barrymore, who was the son of acting legend John Barrymore — the brother of Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore.

The 34-year-old got her show business start as a child in movies like “Altered States,” and made her mark with audiences with Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” as the young girl who made friends with an alien.

By her 20s, she was producing films such as the “Charlie’s Angels” box office hits, and even little independent sensation, “Donnie Darko.”

This Sunday, she is in the running to win an Emmy, U.S. TV’s top honor, for her portrayal of eccentric socialite Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale in HBO drama “Grey Gardens.” And while she was ill and unable to talk to Reuters in Toronto, back in April ahead of the “Grey Gardens” TV debut, Barrymore told Reuters that directing was one of her main goals in life.

“She was awesome,” said “Juno” actress and Oscar nominee Ellen Page, who plays Bliss Cavendar, a.k.a. Babe Ruthless of the team Hurl Scouts in “Whip It.” “She worked tirelessly. She gave energy to everybody, which was mind-blowing.”

By day, Bliss is a high school girl in a small Texas town who likes rock music and loathes the teen beauty queens that her mom (Marcia Gay Harden) wants her to be like. When Bliss discovers the freewheeling derby girls on a trip to Austin, she changes her job schedule and rolls with the team at night.

Soon, Bliss’ alter ego Babe Ruthless becomes a top draw on the roller derby circuit, but that only brings trouble at home, and problems in her blossoming love life.

While most movies aimed at young women offer only longing, heartbreak and unrequited love (think “Twilight”), “Whip It” serves up sharp elbows, hip blocks, punk rock and beer bongs.

Whether the positive momentum from early reviews and Toronto audiences continues as “Whip It” rolls into U.S. theaters on October 2 remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, it appears to be off to a good start. Lucky Drew.

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Drew Barrymore has accepted a challenge to test her green driving skills on late-night TV.

The celebrity eco-warrior will go head-to-head with another Hollywood racer when comedian Jay Leno launches his Green Car Challenge during the first week of his new variety show The Jay Leno Show.

Leno tells Access Hollywood that the stars are lining up to get behind the wheel of a high-powered electric car, but Barrymore will be the first to try-out the track on September 19.

Leno says, “The fun thing about it, there’s a lot of people… perhaps athletes and people like this who are not good talkers but would be fun in this sort of environment – to see if Shaquille O’Neal is faster than Cameron Diaz.”

And there’s one star the host can’t wait to see behind the wheel: “Tom Cruise called and said, ‘Can I get in early and practice?’ I said, ‘No, nobody gets to practice’.”

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Anderson Cooper interviews Drew Barrymore for a special report on 60 Minutes in New York City on Thursday afternoon (September 3).

The pair walked through Times Square and walked up along Broadway, ending at the Ethel Barrymore theater on West 47th Street (Broadway & 8th). Ethel is the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore (Drew’s dad), which makes Ethel the great-aunt of Drew.

FYI: Drew is hosting a skating party at the Bonaventure Skating Center at 24505 Halsted Road in Farmington Hills, Michigan from 3-6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11. The first 955 fans in line will be let in to skate free!

Source:  Just Jared

Drew Barrymore wants all movie and/or roller skating fans to join her in suburban Detroit next week for a get-together in support of her new movie.

Barrymore is making her directorial debut with next month’s “Whip It,” which filmed scenes in Michigan and is centered around the world of roller derby.

The 34-year-old actress and filmmaker will walk the red carpet and host the skating event Sept. 11 at Bonaventure Skating Center in Farmington Hills.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their own skates, or they can rent them for a fee.

Barrymore also produced and appears in “Whip It,” which stars Ellen Page as a small-town Texas teenager who becomes a roller derby star.

Source:  Access Hollywood

Christina Applegate will officially be able to say, Samantha … who? as of today. The Hollywood Reporter announced that the star of the recently canceled ABC sitcom would be joining Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in a new rom com, “Going the Distance.”

Charlie Day, who stars in and helped create “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” has also been cast in the new flick, which is about a couple (Drew and Justin) trying to keep their long-distance relationship alive. Christina will play Drew’s sister and Charlie Justin’s best pal.

Nanette Burstein, who’s already familiar with angsty relationships as she produced and directed last year’s acclaimed high school documentary “American Teen,” is helming “Distance.” Producing team Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot — both of whom have worked on films like “17 Again” and “Hairspray” — will oversee the project.

Drew and Justin, who may or may not once again be a couple off-screen, previously starred in “He’s Just Not That Into You” together. Justin and Christina also have a previous joint venture: Both lent their voices to the upcoming “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” animated film.

source:  MTV.com

Sean Tillmann, the dude best known for playing the role of Har Mar Superstar for years, is now taking up another role. This one’s in film.

Tillmann is tapped to play a roller skating coach in Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, Whip It alongside Ellen Lewis (Juno). It’s set to turn up in theatres in October. Tillmann’s no stranger to the big screen, though: He played pretty much himself in a dance-floor battle in Starsky and Hutch a few years back.

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Drew was one of the many  celebrities who  arrived at the Salsa Cantina ahead of a march on May 26th against Proposition 8 – a law which out lawed gay marriage  in California.  I’ve added photos of the event to the gallery.

According to /Film, Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, Whip It!, finally has a release date through Fox Searchlight, the same studio that released Diablo Cody’s Juno. The roller-derby themed film is set to release on Oct. 9.

Earlier last year, Barrymore snagged Juno’s Ellen Page to co-star along with Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon, and Eve. The film is based on the book Derby Girl by Shauna Cross, where the blue-haired protagonist Bliss, played by Page, finds a way to deal with her frustrations after she joins a roller derby team in a nearby city.

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“Grey Gardens” premiered on HBO to rave reviews and is certainly the front-runner to take the top TV movie prize at the Emmy Awards. After all, the paycaster has dominated that Emmys race for 14 of the last 16 years, including the last five in a row. HBO has aired 47 of the 80 TV films nominated since 1993. And this latest effort should prove irresistible to Emmy voters.

This biopic of two of Jackie Kennedy’s eccentric relatives is based on the 1975 documentary of the same name by the Maysles brothers. The compelling story of mother and daughter —Edith Bouvier Beale and “Little Edie” — was turned into a musical that contended at the 2007 Tony Awards. For playing the younger version of the mother and the older version of the daughter, Christine Ebersole won the lead actress award while Mary Louise Wilson won featured actress for her work as the older version of the mother.

In the HBO movie, two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange (“Tootsie,” “Blue Sky”) plays the mother at all ages while Drew Barrymore is the madcap daughter through the years. In his rave review, Robert Bianco of USA Today neatly summarized the story. “Using the documentary as both touchstone and home base, writer/director Michael Sucsy tries to fill in the gaps. In between shots of the Beales as the documentary found them, we flash back to the women in their glory: Big Edie (Lange) entertaining at parties to the disapproval of her strait-laced husband (Ken Howard), who thinks she should be finding a rich husband for their daughter (Barrymore). Characters swirl around them: Big Edie’s probably gay pianist (Malcolm Gets); Little Edie’s married boyfriend (Daniel Baldwin); Jackie herself (Jeanne Tripplehorn); and documentarians Albert and David Maysles (Arye Gross and Justin Louis). But in the end, this is a two-character play, and Barrymore and Lange play it to the hilt.”
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