'Grey Gardens' Little Edie role for HBO captured Drew Barrymore

“My mother gave me a completely priceless life.”
-- “Little Edie” Beale, 1917-2002 Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore "became" her character in new movie 'Grey Gardens'.Albert L. Ortega / PR PhotosDrew Barrymore "became" her character in the HBO movie 'Grey Gardens'. The 34-year-old actress plays the young Edith Bouvier Beale - the eccentric cousin of former US First Lady Jackie Kennedy - in the film, and was so determined to get the part Drew promised director Michael Sucsy she would live just like her character did.She explained to America's Elle magazine: "I didn't want to come in there like a hungry freak. But I also felt every second counting. So - polite conversation, then he started looking through my binder, and I saw his demeanour change, actually noticing all the hard work I had put into it.

The story of the Beales seemed to be ripe for the telling. Coincidentally, at the same time Sucsy began developing the script for GREY GARDENS with executive producer Lucy Barzun Donnelly, the Broadway musical of the same name started to take form, though neither project was initially aware of the other. Independent of both of those projects was executive producer Rachael Horovitz, whose longtime appreciation for the documentary inspired her to develop it as a film with Albert Maysles. Even Jessica Lange had an eye for the story, as she so loved the documentary she had considered developing it as a film project herself, years before Sucsy approached her to play “Big Edie.”

"I said, 'Look - I have all of this inside of me, and I promise you that I will change my face to be her. I will learn how to stop talking out of the side of my mouth. I will go to school to relearn body language. I will shut out the world. I will not talk to my friends. I will give up my life for this, because I don't think you can play this character and have a social life and balance the two mentalities. I won't act. I'll become this person.' "Little Edith and her mother Big Edith were raised as New York debutantes but eventually withdrew from society, choosing to live alone in their Long Island house Grey Gardens.They became completely shut off and only re-emerged when an American newspaper reported the health department had raided their home, prompting Jackie to step in to help her family.