Drew Barrymore Doesn’t Think Women Can Have It All

It may look like Drew Barrymore has it all, balancing her personal and professional lives perfectly, but the actress and new mom has revealed that she has made sacrifices since giving birth to her daughter, Olive.

The 38-year-old said she had to give up “so much” when she became a mother, but she doesn’t regret it.

“There’s sometimes things you’ve invested a lot of time into or cared so much about, and you get to the precipice and you’re like, ‘I can’t do it,’ because I won’t do everything else well or I will miss out on this or I need to be over here now … I think it’s a lot about sacrifice,” the star told Us Weekly at Lucky magazine’s Fashion and Beauty Blog Conference Thursday.

Barrymore added, “I know it seems like I do everything, but there’s so much I had to give up. And I’m glad I did. I still think about it all the time, but you start to really get instinctual about the right thing to do.”

During a panel later on in the night, Barrymore said, “Unfortunately, I was raised in this, like, generation of, like, ‘Women can have it all,’ and I don’t think you can. I think some things fall off the table, the good news is, what does stay on the table becomes much more important.”

The Golden Globe nominee, who rose to stardom as Gertie, the younger sister of Elliott in Steven Spielberg’s 1981 blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, added that she will not be directing movies now because she doesn’t want to miss out on her daughter growing up. She also added that she’ll slowly get back into acting once Olive — who was born September 26, 2012 — gets older.

For now, the actress will be sharing the screen with longtime collaborator Adam Sandler. The two will team up for their third film together, a currently untitled romantic comedy from Warner Bros. The two previously teamed up for 1998’s The Wedding Singer and six years later in 50 First Dates. The former spawned a short-lived Broadway adaptation of the same name; the latter went on to become one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies.

Drew Barrymore most recently starred opposite John Krasinski in the 2012 romantic drama Big Miracle. She played Rachel Kramer, a Greenpeace volunteer who helps ex-boyfriend Adam Carlson (Krasinski) campaign to save a family of gray whale trapped under the ice in the Arctic Circle.

Do you agree with Drew Barrymore that women can’t have it all?

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