- Speaking to Insider to promote her Tidy Cats partnership, Drew Barrymore reflected on an iconic moment in "Ever After."
- She said she knew she didn't want to use a stunt double when Danielle lifted the prince.
Drew Barrymore's iconic film "Ever After," a reimagining of "Cinderella," turns 25 in July. In a recent interview with Insider to promote her partnership with Tidy Cats, she revealed details about one of the most empowering scenes in the film.
During a scene in the woods, Barrymore's character Danielle and her love interest Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) get into a fight with some crooks who capture the prince. While negotiating her way out of danger, one of the men tells Danielle she can have "anything" she can carry.
Instead of grabbing the dress she lost in the fight or some weapons, Danielle walks up to Henry, throws him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and walks away with him as the crooks laugh.
Watching the character who represented Cinderella physically lift a man and bring him to safety is as meaningful today as it was in 1998 when the movie was released. Many versions of "Cinderella" portray the titular character as helpless, but though poor and mistreated, Danielle was also her own savior at times.
Speaking to Insider at a Tidy Cats event earlier in April, Barrymore explained why she was "particular" about how the scene was filmed.
She said that although many people on the "Ever After" crew believed that she could lift Scott herself because it was "just a fireman's carry," she knew she couldn't do it without help.
"So I was like, 'You guys, I'm sorry. We have got to bust out some wires," she said, explaining that they helped to carry about half of Scott's body weight.
Barrymore's solution made it possible for her to do the lift stunt herself because she knew it "shouldn't be a special effect and it shouldn't be a double."
"You should see it in camera all in one shot. So that we believe it," she told Insider.
The talk-show host is all about authenticity in everything she does. She's recently made headlines about how powerfully that authenticity comes across in the interviews she does as the host of "The Drew Barrymore Show."
Barrymore connected with fellow child star Brooke Shields about her fear of speaking out during the #MeToo movement. She also had her "Ever After" costar Melanie Lynskey and Lynskey's husband, actor Jason Ritter, on the show and bonded with Ritter about struggling with self-worth while having alcoholism.
"I've been in that exact position where your own behavior makes you think that you're not worthy or capable of even having a relationship," she said, reflecting on the moment she had with Ritter for Insider. "And when you start to slay those demons and you don't have that toxic narrative in your head anymore of 'I can't, I'm not capable', I think you start to believe in yourself in a different way that you never did before."
Tidy Care Comfort is available exclusively at Walmart, which also sells Barrymore's appliances and home decor line, "Beautiful by Drew Barrymore."