Drew Barrymore is all about that zombie mom life in Netflix's 'Santa Clarita Diet'
Warning: This post contains spoilers for episode one of Netflix's Santa Clairta Diet.
Projective vomiting and eating a person in one episode? Not a problem for Drew Barrymore, who plays zombie mom Sheila in Netflix's new Santa Clarita Diet.
"Nope!" Barrymore said when asked whether anything was too gross for her to do while filming. "I was into all of it."
The horror-comedy, which launches on the streaming service on Friday, follows suburban couple Sheila and Joel (Timothy Olyphant), real estate agents who have to adjust when Sheila suddenly finds herself craving only human flesh.
"It's like Desperate Housewives meets The Walking Dead," Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said in an interview at the show's premiere Wednesday.
If the plot sounds weird, that's the point.
"I was looking for a different way to do a family comedy," show creator Victor Fresco said in an interview. "I like taking big ideas and then grounding them. What would it be like if your wife woke up one morning and was undead and eating human flesh? How would you navigate the world -- from both Joel's perspective and from the Sheila perspective."
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“The show is about human relationships and family,” Barrymore added. “It goes beyond wacky.”
Fresco, known for shows such as Better Off Ted, said having Barrymore on board was great because she was "game."
"She read the pilot and she really wanted to do it, I think she was just in the mood to eat people," he said. "There was never anything she pushed back on. We did not have to talk her into anything."
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So far, critics are eating the show up.
As USA Today's Robert Bianco wrote, "At heart — and this show does have a surprisingly warm, beating heart — Diet is a comedy about the lengths we’ll go to protect the ones we love and preserve a sense of normalcy, even in the most abnormal situations."
Santa Clarita Diet is streaming on Netflix now.
Topics Netflix
Saba was a Los Angeles-based reporter who covers all things digital entertainment, including YouTube, streaming services and digital influencers. Prior to that, she spent two years at the Los Angeles Times covering entertainment for the Calendar and Company Town sections. Saba grew up in Santa Monica and graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in journalism and B.A. in political science. When not reporting, she is usually binge watching shows online or looking for new coffee shops to frequent.
