ZOMBIES AS A MID-LIFE METAPHOR
Drew Barrymore remains ‘adorable’, even when covered in blood
Most of us still remember her from
E.T. — and that was 36 years ago, when she was seven and playing a girl who connects with the wrinkly extraterrestrial on a quest to go home. She also went on to play a sexy seducer in Poison Ivy (1992), one of
Charlie’s Angels (2000), a girl with a short-term memory in 50 First Dates (2004), and an accidental songwriter in Music and Lyrics ( 2007).
Drew Barrymore recently visited Bangkok to promote the new season of her Netflix series, in which the actress plays a zombie mother.
Nothing to be afraid of, really. On Friday, Netflix released the second season of their comedy original The Santa Clarita Diet, which stars Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as realtors-slash-couple Sheila and Joel. The series’ first season debuted last year, and followed the characters’ efforts to maintain their normal, suburban family life even after Sheila contracts the zombie plague, and must eat human flesh in order to survive.
The comic-drama series treated Thai fans with a red carpet premiere at Siam Paragon, which was attended by the two leading stars. Olyphant and Barrymore took time to sit down with a group of journalists to discuss the show’s new season, as well as the heartwarming message at its core.
You’ve always got this girl-next-door look to you. What made you decide to take this project on?
DB: It’s funny. I really wanted to talk to Victor [Fresco], who created this show, and I really was like “whoever this man is going to dictate the show”. So when I walked in to the meeting with him — I don’t Google people, I don’t cyberstalk — so if I walk into some like dark, auteur guy, then I’m f***ing out. I don’t want to do a dark, heavy show. I’m not interested in eating people, necessarily. What I love about it is that there’s that element but its really a show that’s about a marriage, and it’s a comedy and it’s light-hearted, and there’s a sweetness between this family when they talk about everyday things like Yelp reviews and garden hoses and Abby’s [Sheila and Joel’s daughter] school — I wouldn’t want to do a show that’s just about the dark side of our show, and I wouldn’t want to do a show that’s just about the light side of our show. I think you need the combo in today’s age.
Do you see it as a metaphor for what families face every day? In the show, the problem is the undead plague, but it could just as easily been about cancer, or any other life-changing event.
DB: Absolutely.
TO: It’s the essence of the show. It doesn’t even have to go as far as cancer. I think that when you’re in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship, and one of the people in that relationship decide to make a major life change, when they start to express ambition that they may not have had before, it’s very disruptive to the relationship. Nobody really talks about it, but if your wife decides 15 years into a marriage that she wants to go get a degree, it’s very disruptive to the relationship. And the key to making a relationship work is what you’re willing to do to accommodate that person’s dream and the sacrifices you’re willing to make.
DB: You know what, I was watching for a second or third time that film I love so much Revolutionary Road with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, that you would think has no parallel to our show. This whole movie is about this wife who wants to make a major life change to become more bohemian and Parisian and get out of the safety of their mundane suburbia life, and the tragedy is that he won’t go, he won’t do it, he’s too afraid. And this show is the complete opposite of that, in the sense that everything just goes crazy, and we decide to anchor down and thrive together through it.
Do you feel like your character is making far more sacrifices for Drew’s in the show?
TO: Without question, yeah. He’s definitely making some big sacrifices, he’s helping his wife kill people. He wasn’t doing any of that prior to this, so it’s a pretty big life change. But I do think it’s a team effort, and this season really starts to address that imbalance, with Shiela starting to make sacrifices as well. It takes a lot of work.