DREW BARRYMORE Plays RACHEL IN KEN KWAPIS’ BIG MIRACLE

Drew Barrymore embodies versatility, having added to her status as one of the film business’ most popular leading ladies by becoming a successful producer and director.

In her new movie Big Miracle she plays Greenpeace activist Rachel Kramer. Rachel is what you would call an extremist. She will go to any lengths to stop big oil companies from harming the environment, including showing up uninvited at meetings with a bull horn. When Rachel (reporter Adam's ex-girlfriend) finds out about a family of trapped gray whales, she turns all of her attention to getting them freed.

Born in Culver City, California, into a revered family of actors that includes, among many others, her grandfather John Barrymore and grand-uncle Lionel Barrymore, she started performing in commercials before her first birthday. At age six, she was chosen by director (and godfather) Steven Spielberg to co-star as Gertie in his (at the time) small-scale feature E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Once the film was released to overall acclaim in 1982, the young actress had instantly become a movie star.

As a longtime animal and human rights activist, she is devoted to such causes as the United Nations World Food Program (for which she was chosen to serve as an Ambassador Against Hunger) and the ASPCA, among many others.

John Krasinski plays “ADAM” in Ken Kwapis’ Big Miracle

John Krasinski, best known to American audiences as Jim Halpert on the hit television show The Office. In Universal’ Pictures ‘Big Mircle he plays Adam Carlson a television reporter who lived in the city at that time, but as an amalgam of small-town news people who served to tell the human elements of the story.

Even though signing on would mean multiple trips between the set of his television series and Anchorage, Krasinski believed it was worth it to work again with director Ken Kwapis. The filmmaker had directed him in License to Wed, as well as many pivotal episodes of The Office. “Ken is a phenomenal person,” commends Krasinski. “He did the pilot of our show and many of the important episodes, including the first time I said ‘I love you’ to Pam. He’s been there emotionally in a lot of stages of my life as an actor, as well as a person growing up in front of the camera. He has that rare gift to be not only in tune with you but also with the whole movie.”

The producers were pleased to bring him onto the production as a character who would discover the story and be at the center of the story’s romantic triangle.

When Barrymore heard that Krasinski was a candidate to play Adam, she advocated bringing him onto Big Miracle. “I remember calling Ken from the San Francisco airport,” she says. “I was screaming down the hallway that I’d do anything to do this movie with him. He was perfect for the role, as he is wholesome, funny and a good guy, just like Adam. Even though the film is rooted in the environmental and political aspects of the whale rescue, there is also a love triangle that had to work among me.”

BIG MIRACLE - Everybody Loves Whales

Based on the inspiring true story that captured the hearts of people across the world, the rescue adventure Everybody Loves Whales tells the amazing tale of a small town news reporter (John Krasinski) and a Greenpeace volunteer (Drew Barrymore) who are joined by rival world superpowers to save a family of majestic gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle.

Local newsman Adam Carlson (Krasinski) can’t wait to escape the northern tip of Alaska for a bigger market. But just when the story of his career breaks, the world comes chasing it, too. With an oil tycoon, heads of state and hungry journalists descending upon the frigid outpost, the one who worries Adam the most is Rachel Kramer (Barrymore). Not only is she an outspoken environmentalist, she’s also his ex-girlfriend.

With time running out, Rachel and Adam must rally an unlikely coalition of Inuit natives, oil companies and Russian and American military to set aside their differences and free the whales. As the world’s attention turns to the top of the globe, saving these endangered animals becomes a shared cause for nations entrenched against one another and leads to a momentary thaw in the Cold War.

“Big Miracle” is released and distributed by United International Pictures through Solar Entertainment Corporation. Showing on May 2, 2012