Drew Barrymore got kind of testy during an interview in London promoting her new film with on-off boyfriend Justin Long, Going The Distance. She frankly told a reporter that the last journalist she’d talked to had harped too much on her troubled past and that she “wanted to punch her” and “wanted to rip this woman’s face off.” This is interesting because just yesterday Lainey at Lainey Gossip wrote a great editorial about how Drew is always very professional and sunny when promoting her films, even when they’re headed for dudsville. I really liked the way Lainey explained it. She wrote that celebrities are fragile people and that it bothers them when their films are trashed by critics, but that they have to keep going and acting like everything is ok. “Drew isn’t my favourite right now, but right now she’s also a survivor. So no doubt, if Going the Distance is sh-t, and that’s been the assumption, she’s had a lot of practise showing up for class tomorrow. Drew as you know is a seasoned warrior in the business.”

Maybe it’s getting to Drew, though, judging from how she’s said to have acted in London during her press tour. This doesn’t sound like her at all, and she must have been on edge:

Today, at 35, in plaid shirt and velvet sneakers, she is the antithesis of the spoiled Hollywood starlet. Thinner in the face than on screen, she is teeny at 5ft 4in.

I ask about Going the Distance and the importance of rom-coms. “I need them at the end of a crap day — a nice happy ending and a fairytale,” she agrees. “On the other hand I like movies that are very grounded in reality but still maintain their comedy.”

Her character Erin is alternately tough and vulnerable — a modern-day Katharine Hepburn. “I’m not at that place in my life where I want to play a character who says, I just have to get married’. I swear to God, with some of these romantic comedies, these women are being shot in the butt with steroids, and I feel like they’ll eat the husband alive on their wedding day. It just terrifies me — I don’t relate to that at all. I want to have a job. In fact, this movie asks the question: How do you keep the job and the guy?’ That is a question I’m interested in discussing, not like I’m going to rip your hair out because you stole my wedding dress’. I don’t care about that.”

Rom-coms conspire to keep lovers apart (class, sexuality, race) but here it’s lack of money and employment. “It’s not a movie where the female lead is in Christian Louboutins and thousand-dollar suits,” she agrees. There are some great jokes including an excruciating phone sex scene. Barrymore says she wanted to out the taboo. “It can be tricky,” she laughs.

Encouraged by her tone, I gesture at the clippings on the table and say I’m exhausted reading about her “wild child” past. Does she ever lose patience talking about it?

She nods angrily. “You should have heard this bitch I had to do an interview with before you. God, I wanted to punch her, she would just not drop the youth thing. I have no problem talking about it. I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I’m actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they in turn were my life lessons.

“It’s actually good to get it done young and have a great life later. But yeah, man, I wanted to rip this woman’s face off. She just would not shut up about it.”

[From This is London via US Weekly]

It makes you wonder who the other reporter was and if there’s video of this terrible interview she had with Drew. It sounds really harsh but maybe Drew was totally fed up. It must grate on you to have to do so many interviews in a row, especially when people ask stupid questions. Drew will get through it, though, and she’ll keep making romcoms that aren’t quite as bad as the other crap out there. There is indeed buzz that her movie sucks, but it might do ok at the box office. It can’t do worse than The Switch.

Drew was on Letterman on Tuesday night and told a cute story about getting all her dogs to walk with her on Fifth Avenue without leashes. Note to Drew: that’s not legal! Letterman also showed her his bite marks from his aggressive dog. You can watch a segment of Drew’s interview here. She’s come a long way since flashing Letterman in 1995, but not all people realize that.

Drew Barrymore is shown outside the John Stewart show yesterday, 8/25/10. Credit: Girlie/Fame Pictures