HOLLYWOOD -- Quality, not quantity is Drew Barrymore's new guideline in choosing her screen roles.

Barrymore was originally offered the Neve Campbell role in Scream, but chose to play the masked madman's first victim instead.

That meant she was only on screen for the first 10 minutes and wouldn't be around for any sequels.

"Harvey Weinstein (head of Miramax Pictures) offered me the role of Sidney and I initially accepted but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to play the girl who gets killed in the opening scene," recalls Barrymore.

"I remembered that Janet Leigh died quickly in Psycho and so did Angie Dickinson in Dressed to Kill. Because both those women were stars, the audience was shocked and unsettled when they died so soon.

"Suddenly the audience figured no one was safe in the movie. That's what I wanted to be able to do for Scream, plus I knew that most people remember Janet and Angie from their movies but don't remember who the heroine was played by."

Barrymore was also offered the Elizabeth Berkley role in Showgirls but turned it down.

"That was at a time in my life when I was totally liberating myself. I posed for Playboy and was doing the whole club scene.

"It seemed like a perfect movie for me but when I sensed (director) Paul Verhoeven had a sleazier view of the story than I did, I pulled out."

Barrymore is obviously in a new phase in her life. No strippers and hapless victims for her this summer. In the romantic fairy tale Ever After, which opened this weekend, she plays a strong-willed, feminist Cinderella.


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