Drew barrymore alaska, 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.

Read More: delawareonline