Daring Drew Barrymore was more like Darling Drew yesterday.

She didn't flash reporters at a Four Seasons Hotel press conference as she did to David Letterman on his TV talk show a few years ago.

Instead, Barrymore bared her soul, speaking briefly about her fragile life and times.

Mind you, a frisky female media type admitted to the 23-year-old actress that she was tempted to flash her in honour of her Letterman exposure.

Barrymore took the statement with good cheer and a big smile.

As she pointed out during the 45-minute Home Fries festival event, Barrymore has a great deal to be cheerful about these clean and sober days of living with boyfriend Luke Wilson.

It was on the Austin, Texas, set of Home Fries last year that she met the love of her life, who co-stars in the picture.

Wilson also sat beside her during the conference along with fellow actors Catherine O'Hara, Jake Busey, writer Vince Gilligan, director Dean Parisot and producer Mark Johnson.

But the former E.T. star, a well-documented survivor of drug and alcohol abuse, was the main attraction.

She happily obliged.

Barrymore was also enthusiastic when a scribe observed that her "sweet and adorable" role in Home Fries proved that she was good at comedy.

"Thank you," said Barrymore. "Wow -- cool."

In the movie, opening theatrically next month, Barrymore is indeed sweet and adorable as a pregnant mistress and smalltown fast food worker who gets involved with her lover's two sons (Wilson and Busey). They are sent by their vengeful mother (O'Hara) to put a stop to the affair.

The performance marks Barrymore's third 1998 comedy, arriving after The Wedding Singer where she played "a sweet and adorable" waitress, and in Ever After, where she was "a sweet and adorable" 16th century Cinderella.

Apparently being funny professionally is coming naturally to her because she's happy personally.

"Right now I don't want to do anything heavy," she said of performing in comedies. "For the first time, I'm willing to take that risk."

She added playfully: "Comedy rules."

So does motherhood.

"I can't wait to be a mom," admitted a babyless Barrymore, who has learned from her erratic single-parent upbringing "that all that matters is to protect and love your child."

Meanwhile, Barrymore confessed to reporters that she has learned to be "humbled" by the Barrymore acting legacy, but cautious of the Barrymores' self-destructive nature.

"The good, the bad, and the weird, they all run through me," she said of her deceased grandfather John Barrymore and his actor siblings Ethel and Lionel.

It might sound "cosmic and crazy," but "I talk to them every day."

Actually, it sounded like the daring and darling Drew Barrymore.


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