This month's article is Drew Does Cinderella from the August '98 issue of seventeen. For the cover photo, click here. For the postcard sheet, click here. Enjoy!!!

Once upon a time, there were these two pigs. And they were, shall we say, totoally going at it. "Those animals are certainly saucy," jokes Drew Barrymore, 23, as she runs over to check out the frisky hogs. "They sure know how to flirt." After a few minutes of the entire cast and crew cracking every predictable joke, shooting resumes on the set of Ever After: A Cinderella Story.
The scene finds Drew, who is draped in rags (Cinderella's uniform for most of the film), throwing a poor, hapless chicken into the hace of the prince (Dougray Scott). To protect the actor's chiseled features, director Andy Tennant places a glass sheild in front of Scott. But of course, animal activist Drew can barely bring herself to throw the chicken at the glass, so the scene requires about a gazillion more takes before they get it right.
Obviously, this is no ordinary Hollywood production where shooting is usually held up by agents, screenwriters and tempermental actors. So what if it's deleayed by a few difficult memebers of the farm faimly instead? Evrybody can deal: the location for Ever After is the breathtakingly beautiful South of France, and the actors are parading around in majorly fabulous sixteenth-century costumes. In other words, you gotta be pretty lucky to land here-on the set of one of the coolest projects Hollywood has greenlit lately.
Back in her floral-patterend tralior, Drew, still wearing her waist-length dark-brown wig, recalls how she learned about this revised version of Cinderella. "I'll never forget hearing about the project," she says, her eyes widening with excitment. "I was at the Woody Allen premire [of Everybody Says I love You], and after that I was going nuts for a month hoping that I would get an offer. It's every girl's fantasy to do this part."
But Drew was signing to play the classic Cinderella. "I didn't want to portray a girl who sat around and wished for what she wanted, and it magically came to her," she says. "In this version, it's really her brains and the fact that she's well-read that make her win in the end. It has nothing to do with anything that could be aesthetic or, to be honest, shallow." This is a feminist Cinderella, and Drew definelty like the films empowering message. "There are so many pressures that are put on young women," she says. "Whatever we can do to alleviate that and [help women] feel beautiful about who we are inside, which is the only beauty there truly is, is so nice. Let's get down and dirty. Let's be the real girl here, you know?"
If you're thinking that Drew's Cinderella sounds too politically correct, don't worry. This Cinderella is stilla romantic, indulging in that whole tear-inducing, falling-in-love thing with the most charming of all princes. "The prince is not a person you meet at the ball who is a complete mystery up until then, and a comlete mystery after," says Drew. "I mean, this is a living, breathing, intersting young man who's vry heoic in his own way."
Scott, 30, the English actor who also appeared in the thriller Deep Impact couldn't agree more. "This prince has a story and a complex family history." he says. "You watch this character change and grow throughout the film."
Drew was happy about another departure from the original story: This Cinderella gets to kick and fight in ways the storybook heroine never did. "Sword fighting takes a real skill," Drew says. "I've seen a lot of great movies where men do it, and they make it look really easy-it's not."
At least some of the other athletic scenes were easier. "This is a running Cinderella, and thank God I run or I'd be constantly out of breath," Drew laughs. "And I've always ridden horses, so at least I felt pretty comfortable with that." Scott, on the other hand, had to take riding lessons for months before they started filming. "It was worth it, though, because I was really looking forward to working with Drew," he says. he felt they had a certain on-screen chemistry; off-screen, he found Drew completly down-to-earth. "She's not the Hollywood starlet she could be," he says. "She is one of the most generous people I've ever met."
In fact, Drew did everything in her power to unite the cst and crew, including paying for extra snacks and throwing a Halloween party. "Everyone was sort of segregated in their groups, but I did my best to bring them together," she says. "When you're making a movie, you're actually with theses people for three months, every day, day in, day out, all day long. I think this is a functioning, working family, and that is so great." Judging from the hugs and kisses being exchanged during the last week of filming, Drew did the right thing, and happily ever after isn't such a fairy tale after all.