Maybe that title is a little off. Drew was awesome and very easy to work with. It SHOULD read “Jason Janik vs. Drew Barrymore’s fans” to be more accurate, because there were a lot of them to deal with. This shoot was a little bit wild, thanks to a bunch of rain, a late plane and hundreds of screaming fans.
You see, I was hired by Drew’s movie studio’s PR company to take photos of her during her publicity appearance. I was basically supposed to get shots of her interacting with the fans and with the media. Then, she had to rush over to her movie screening.
Well, fans started lining up 6, 7, even 8 hours early just to see her. It had been raining all day, too. As a matter of fact, the rain wound up delaying her flight, which pushed everything back. Then media kept her busy longer than they were supposed to. Finally, the eager fans got their chance.
Drew was so nice to each of the fans. I’m a decently nice guy. My wife is even more nice. However, I’ve never seen anyone as nice, sweet and sincere as Drew was with her fans. I’ve done tons of these PR events before, and many celebrities don’t care. They are doing it because they HAVE to. Drew was taking a real interest in what her fans were saying as they chatted with her. She was awesome!
Because of all the delays, Drew didn’t get to see everyone who was waiting for hours, but she tried her best. After security closed the event, Drew was nice enough to take a moment with me, as seen above. And, yes. I now have proof that she is as cool in real life as she appears to be on the silver screen…