Drew Barrymore: Long-distance relationships are hard

Drew Barrymore is no stranger to being separated from a boyfriend. The actress stars alongside on/off beau Justin Long in new movie Going The Distance — about a couple who try to maintain a long-distance relationship, one in New York City, New York and the other in San Francisco, California.

And Drew says the role struck a chord with her.

“I have been in long-distance relationships my whole life and I find that they take an extraordinary amount of work,” she said. “I don’t think they are much different from a relationship when you live across the street. They just take work and you want that work to be something that’s fun and reciprocal.

“The best kinds of relationships are the ones where you don’t feel like you are doing all the work and that the other person is never meeting you half-way. I think that just breeds an empty, lonely resentment. But if you both bend together and go, ‘We’re going to fix this, we are going to make it work, we are going to make plans so that we feel we have things to look forward to…’”

Drew recently admitted she’s not a very good driver — because she doesn’t pay much attention to the road.

“I am a really horrible driver. I’m really fast and I don’t pay any attention to anything that’s going on around me,” she said.

“I’m completely fiddling with my radio and lost in my music and just sort of looking out the window at the billboards and going: ‘Oh that looks interesting’.

“And then I’m like: ‘When was the last time I actually looked at the road?’”