An Alaskan adventure usually conjures up images of snowmobiles, bears and crashing glaciers. But Drew Barrymore’s three-month experience shooting Big Miracle was more like “Into the Zen” than Into the Wild.

“I’m a Cali-girl through and through, but it was just nice to not be in the busy rush of Los Angeles,” Barrymore says of her stint in Anchorage, where she shunned Internet and e-mail in favor of letter-writing and reading. Shooting for the film (opening Friday) took place in the fall of 2010, and it could not have come at a better time for the now 36-year-old actress who has been a mainstay in pop culture for three decades.

“There’s a book called Slowing Down to the Speed of Life, and there’s something about that title that totally rang true about this experience,” Barrymore says. “It’s hard to check out of your life for three solid months. It’s even harder when you get older. But I really did dive in.”

Perhaps “dive out” would be a better term. In Big Miracle, a fictionalized retelling of the 1988 effort to rescue three gray whales trapped by ice near the Arctic Circle, Barrymore plays a Greenpeace activist. It is her first big-screen acting project in two years and probably will be her last for a while: No other firm projects are lined up.

That’s all just fine, she says. Barrymore is in no rush to find a new venture and is more content to focus on her personal life, which includes her fiancé, 34-year-old art consultant Will Kopelman.

“I’ve done all of this for 35 years,” Barrymore says of her career. “I think maybe it’s OK to put the life first for a minute. I don’t really know this feeling. It’s new and exciting.”

After all, Barrymore began her entertainment career at age 11 months when she appeared in a dog food commercial. Since finding child stardom after 1982′s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, she had a famously turbulent adolescence that eventually made way for an adult career that saw her move to rom-com queen (The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates). She also is a successful producer, director and, lately, professional photographer.

While chatting at her Flower Films office, Barrymore buzzes from just viewing a photo spread she shot for the fashion glossy V featuring some her favorite rock bands in a house party theme. A few minutes earlier, the entire office had erupted in cheers after seeing the pictures in the magazine’s current music issue.

“We just opened the magazine,” she says. “You kind of don’t believe it’s going to happen until you see it and then it’s real.”

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Drew Barrymore talked for a few minutes this morning about her new whale-rescue movie, Big Miracle, before Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts brought up “that rock” on her finger, her engagement ring.

Drew beamed.

Are wedding plans moving forward?

“We’re trying to figure it out,” the actress said. “I think everyone expects you to kind of know right away what the plans are. I’m like, oh goodness, it just happened a month ago! Do I not have it together or is it OK to keep daydreaming?”

Roberts told her it was fine to keep daydreaming: “To see how happy you are makes us so happy for you.”

Replied Drew, “I root for his happiness and people’s happiness and this is a really positive story and positive time and I like positivity, I’m drawn to it!”

USAToday.com

Drew Barrymore and Will Kopelman made their first public appearance as an engaged couple at last night’s Washington DC premiere of Big Miracle. Hear why Drew says the film makes her feel like she’s come “full circle” from E.T. in PopSugar Rush.

Last week, Drew Barrymore was a guest on the talk show “The Colbert Report”. You can now watch her interview below!

There are some strong messages at play in Ken Kwapis’ Big Miracle. The film tells the story of a family of whales that is trapped under a patch of Alaskan ice and is unable to make it out into open water. There are, of course, comments on environmentalism, but also the media, oil drilling, political/military action and the importance of respecting cultural differences. With that much at play there is a substantial risk of becoming overly preachy, but as stars Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski recently explained in an interview, the key is to speak from the heart and hide the agenda.

I was recently invited to participate in a roundtable interview with the two stars of Big Miracle in which they spilled their guts about filming their new movie. Check out the interview below in which they discuss the film’s messages as well as what it was like working with Ken Kwapis on such a different project, the true story that the movie is based on, and what they enjoyed about working together.

Were you guys aware of the story the film is based on before the script came together? Was it news to you or do you remember hearing it?

John Krasinski: I remember hearing about it. I remember definitely knowing something about it, probably was too young to be at all involved in it and wasn’t necessarily the most current events guy at age whatever-I-was…nine, I guess? Ten? But no, I mean, when you read the script I remember I read the script and I thought it was really great, I thought it was really sweet. My concern was that it was like, I said to Ken [Kwapis], “Yeah, it’s really good, but we have to cut back a little bit of this stuff. Some of this stuff is a little unbelievable.” And he’s like, “Nah, it’s all true.” And I was like, “Alright, Ken. I don’t know how long you’ve been in Hollywood, but none of this is real.” And he was like, “No, these people got married and…

What part seemed the most unbelievable to you?

JK: I think that the press secretary and the national guard pilot falling in love and getting married after being so adversarial on the phone is insane. That is insane! And then when you see the picture at the end of the movie it’s so moving. I think it’s just a great, great movie, especially at this point in time to believe in the power of unity and getting together for a cause or really for anything, especially with social media. I think this is the time where not only can you have a voice, but your voice can be the catalyst for something massive.

Ted Danson was talking about while you were shooting Shell was trying to drill, did you get at all involved with that?

JK: Yeah, I remember that night when he went. He was nervous. He said, “Those guys are real.”

Drew Barrymore: I think it was great for him because he was playing J.W. who is this oil man, but no, that was really his cause.

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Drew Barrymore is interviewed in the February 2012 issue of “O” magazine! Make sure you pick up a copy today!

In March, Drew Barrymore will join Osborne as an “Essentials” co-host, a choice that may seem surprising to some viewers, but Tabesh says, “She’s exactly the kind of person we want. She’s got a lineage and connection to classic Hollywood and the knowledge and the passion.

“Drew came to our film festival last year in LA to co-host a movie that [her great-uncle] Lionel Barrymore was in,” Tabesh says. “She was fantastic, knew her stuff so well. Not only her family’s films but classic movies as well. She and Robert had a great conversation. And she said she would love to co-host The Essentials”.

Barrymore and Osborne will cover a wide range of films, both classic and contemporary. “Dinner at Eight” from 1933 features her grandfather, John, and great uncle, Lionel. Romance figures prominently in “Alice Adams” (1935), starring Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray, “Wuthering Heights” the original 1939 adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and “To Have and Have Not” (1944), which features the first-time pairing of Bogie and Bacall. They’ll also get around to Carol Reed’s mystery “The Third Man” (1949), and Charles Vidor’s film noir “Gilda” (1946) with sex bomb Rita Hayworth.

It will be interesting to hear what Barrymore has to say about Martin Scorsese’s rare feminist drama, “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which was made in 1974, the year before she was born and won Ellen Burstyn a Best Actress Oscar in a role turned down by Shirley MacLaine. A more humdrum choice is “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), the somewhat dated Robert Benton divorce drama that won Oscars for Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. The odd couple will even dissect Rob Reiner’s hilarious Rob Reiner glam-rock mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” (1984).

NYPost.com

Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Dermot Mulroney, Kristen Bell, and Ted Danson dish on their whale rescue adventure flick.