分节阅读 Table of contents

• 1.A portrait of a Hollywood star

  • Since melting audiences' hearts - at the age of six - in Steven Spielberg's beloved E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most endearing and talented actresses of her generation.
    
    Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14, saying goodbye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today.
    
    Drew found herself becoming more private every year, and yet these stories were beating at the door of her heart, screaming, "Let me out!!!" She didn’t like the idea that her publisher wanted to call this a memoir. “Memoir” seemed heavy and didn’t sound right to her. She hopes that this is a book you can easily dip into. A book to read when you want and every once in a while it catches you inconveniently feeling something.

• 2.Birds of paradise and joshua tree

  • Drew grew up in West Hollywood, a place full of pimps, drag queens and old movie theaters. Her mother raised her as a single mother there. Alongside the driveway lining the house were plants called birds-of-paradise. They looked like angry scary flamingos. Drew was always afraid that they would come to life and bite her. When Drew turned seven, after E.T. had premiered, she was starting to get a lot of other film offers and life started to change. One day her mom pulled in with a brand new BMW 320i, and someone had cut down the bougainvillea bush that no one had ever pruned. The birds-of-paradise had been guillotined as well and were no longer intimidating.
    
    Drew, however, didn’t like the change. She cried, feeling like everything around her was crashing down. She wonders to this day if those birds-of-paradise ever grew their heads back. Since this vegetation was the embodiment of everything in the neighborhood, just like wildflowers, they defy tradition, and yet create their own traditions at the same time.
    
    When Drew’s mother was pregnant, her parents got separated. Drew had never had a dinner with both of her parents present. Her dad had been a promising actor, but he threw his career away. Today he looks like a frail, homeless old hippie. Drew and her father would meet up in Joshua Tree and stay in some weird place for the weekend. They would tool around in Joshua Tree National Monument in some golf cart, which Drew had no idea where in the world he got it from. She loved those times when they laughed all the way home to her father’s one-liners.
    
    In her late twenties, her father died of cancer. They planned a ceremony where they would let his ashes fly all over Joshua Tree. She said goodbye to her father in a way only he could have understood.

• 3.The Beautiful friends

  • Drew and Cameron Diaz have known each other since they were teenagers. “Poo Poo” is their mutual nickname for each other. Now they are older and have their own family, but Poo Poo is still one of Drew’s closest friends. In 2000, high off the rush of Charlie’s Angels, they went to a skydiving place not far from where they lived then, and an adventure commenced. At the skydiving school, they watched the instructional videos, practiced at the training facility, and last but not least, signed an “if I don’t make it” contract. After all that, they took a plane and flew to ten thousand feet up high in the air. Tethered to a guide, they both jumped.  After a one minute free fall, her chute jerked her up, and then she started to glide through the air, gently floating through the air like a soaring bird. She was overwhelmed by the peace in the air.
    
    In 1982, Drew was auditioning for a film called Poltergeist. That was when she first met the film’s producer Steven Spielberg. However, Drew wasn’t right for that movie. A few weeks later, her mom got a call from the casting directors for another of Steven’s film, A Boy’s Life, which was renamed as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial several months later. This time, she got the job, the job that made her known and loved by people all over the world.
    
    While shooting the movie, Steven never let them fake anything. Tears, joy or sarcasm, he insisted they be real! Drew has always tried to be her best in front of Steven. They have had many jokes and profound conversations over the years. Drew has always trusted him with life advice as she still does to this day. 
    
    When she first met Adam Sandler, Drew was in her early twenties. It was at a coffee house in Hollywood, and Drew begged, borrowed, and stole to get him to sit down with her. By then, he was already very popular from starring in Saturday Night Live. Somehow, Drew was convinced that they should do something together. Not before long, she approached Adam and began to plead her case to him. Guess what, Adam liked the idea.
    
    In 1998, they made the movie The Wedding Singer. Six years later, all the same people working on The Wedding Singer got together again for their new film 50 First Dates. This movie broke a record by bringing in an astounding forty-five million dollars at the box office on its opening weekend. A little time later, Drew and Adam once again paired up for the movie Blended. This marked the third time they would fall in love on-screen. This time, they headed to Africa to make the film, bringing along both their families.  They were able to perfectly balance family and work.
    
    It’s incredible how life works. When Adam and Drew first met, they were basically kids. But now they both had two beautiful daughters. Adam, Drew’s best partner, was once a boy and he had become a man now. She liked the comfort of thinking they would still be together when they were really old.

• 4.Memories of Africa

  • One day in 2004, Drew was reading the New York Times when she came across an article. It said, “Children line up to get into classroom,”and as she read on, it described the World Food Program’s role in providing meals. Her heart broke. She was so overwhelmed with empathy and curiosity. So she started calling people she worked with and was eventually transferred to the UN.
    
    When Drew started her inquiries with the UN, she was presenting herself more as a volunteer who wanted to learn. One year later she got the call. It was actually from Marie Claire magazine and they had a contact at the UN. They would provide her with a liaison and funding if Drew would write an article about her trip.
    
    Drew and her liaison went directly to Kenya and meet a UN aid worker at the airport. When they got to the school, a greeting ceremony was choreographed to welcome them. The classroom was dark as the only light that came in was from cracks and a few cut-open spaces in the walls. They also visited a hospital with children who had AIDS. Drew got to know a girl named Edith, and it was the very first time she managed to build a relationship with a kid. Edith was giving Drew the biggest compliment by wanting to be around her. The trip ended before she knew it.
    
    After a few days of being home, she was amazed by how much abundance people in America lived in, which made her really depressed and guilty. A few weeks later, she called the UN again and asked to go back. This time she started to really think about what needed to be done. First, money was needed to sustain schools in the area for a year. Help was also needed to build advanced boreholes, which brought water to places in need.  When Drew returned to America, she went to the UN in New York and got her full ambassadorship. 
    
    Two years later, Drew went back for a third time to Africa with her husband, Will. They went to the site of the school and kids there walked them over to a little painted sign that said “The Barrymore Learning Academy” in hand-painted letters. Before they left, they visited Edith. She had grown so beautifully. She was taller and healthy. 
    
    Drew hopes she can inspire her daughters by what she has done. And this is where she puts her faith in the rule that kids follow by example. She also hopes that she can be of help to push them toward thinking outside of themselves, to find things that are important to them and do their best to achieve it.

• 5.The man of my life

  • Liza and Drew got to know each other through the movie Big Miracle. Beyond work, they would talk about relationship issues. If Drew had grown up at all, she was still young and naive in relationships: a woman in the workplace and yet a kid in matters of love. When the film finished, her life had slowed down and she started to know herself in a whole new way. She actually felt like a complete person for the first time. It was time to reprioritize and make way for that big, meaningful, life-changing love.
    
    In 2008, Drew first met her husband Will Kopelman at a friend’s house. When he asked for her phone number, Drew almost fell off the chair. She was thrilled at the old-fashioned question and she quickly gave it to him. They had a lovely time dating for a few weeks, but they were both not in the right place at the time. So they just drifted back into their lives.
    
    Then, one night in 2011, Drew ran into Will in a bar. Her friend excitedly whispered in her ear, “He’s single.” The timing wasn’t off anymore. They went on some dates, and they were really fun but comfortable. There was a shocking trajectory where everything was just falling into place.
    When their relationship became serious, Drew started to panic. She was afraid that her newfound sense of self would go away and sharing a life with someone would mean she was no longer her own person. 
    
    When Liza asked how everything was going, Drew told her everything. Liza saw the panic in her eyes. She gave her some helpful advice: Door number one opens, but everyone wants to over think and analyze what is behind door number two or three. Choose the great person in front of you; that is the choice to commit and you move forward. Drew said that was the best advice she ever got. And she made it. She fell in love, and now they have two beautiful daughters who are her entire universe. She lives her life for them.
    
    It was Drew’s maiden voyage to Will’s parents’place on the Upper East Side where he had lived as a child. By then, they had been dating only a few months. It was a cozy and beautiful place, with photographs telling her a story of a close-knit family. However, this was something unfamiliar and frankly intimidating to her, and she figured she did not belong there.
    
    It was so hard for her to believe that Will’s parents, Arie and Coco Kopelman, had been married for thirty-nine years with two children and a wonderful life: good schools for every generation, and great amounts of world travel.
    
    When Will said his parents wanted to go to dinner and meet her, Drew was freaking out inside. Somehow, this felt like the biggest audition of her life. Will’s mother Coco was extending herself and giving Drew a hug, and Drew’s tense body started to relax. They spoke about their lives and got to know each other. The whole family had an incredible sense of humor. The strong stability and abundant love in their family unit helped utterly dissolve Drew’s anxiety. And for the first time, she had become part of a family. Drew had hit the in-law jackpot in the lottery of life in a really big way.

关于本书 About the book

Since melting audiences' hearts - at the age of six - in Steven Spielberg's beloved E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most endearing and talented actresses of her generation.

Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14, saying goodbye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today.

本书金句 Key insights

● I have become more private every year, and yet these stories were beating at the door of my heart, screaming, “Let me out!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

● They (birds of paradise), like all of us in this neighborhood, were wild. Let us all be like them and defy tradition, and yet create our own traditions at the same time. Let us all be wildflowers!

● It’s as if I could grasp as a kid that this horse was so wild, he couldn’t be pinned down, and even if he could I am not sure you would want him around (talking about her father).

● When he holds my daughters in his arms, I don’t think there is a prouder moment for me. Because this one man believed in my silly stories, he made me feel like I could do anything (talking about Steven Spielberg).