Dew Barrymore‘s days of doing her own stunts are over. The actress said she suffered a concussion while filming the first season of Netflix‘s Santa Clarita Diet in 2016.
“I will never do my own stunts again,” the 43-year-old Barrymore told PEOPLE this week. “That was the end of a wonderful era. I can look back at a bunch of movies that I totally was a baller and always threw myself in there. I whip it in Charlie’s Angels! But I will never do a stunt again because I could’ve died and it was really scary.”
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Barrymore said the injury happened when she jumped on an actor’s back in one scene. She slipped, falling six feet flat onto concrete. Production was stalled while Barrymore was in the hospital for two days. She needed MRIs and CAT scans done.
A week later, she was back on set, but vowed to never do stunts again because of her two daughters, 5-year-old Olive and 3-year-old Frankie.
“I have two children,” Barrymore told PEOPLE. “When you don’t have kids, you’re not thinking about your mortality. Now that I have children, I will be sitting on the sidelines.”
In Santa Clarita Diet, Barrymore plays Sheila Hammond, a wife and mother who becomes a zombie. Her husband, Joel, is played by Timothy Olyphant, and their daughter Abby is played by Liv Hewson. The second season debuted on March 23.
In a recent interview with The TODAY Show, Barrymore said the series helped her come out of a “very dark and fearful place” after her divorce from Will Kopelman.
“Sometimes when you think something is the worst timing and the worst idea, it can actually become the thing that saves you and pulls you out and gives you a new focus, and empowerment, and switches your constant stuck way of thinking and feeling and put[s] it into something else that might actually get you to a healthier place faster,” Barrymore told Willie Geist.
While the show can be gory at times (she plays a flesh-eating zombie), Barrymore told PEOPLE that the series focuses more on a marriage and how they respond to a major change. The show is optimistic about their relationship.
“I don’t like seeing bickering. I want to see a couple who thrives and does have each other’s backs and has a great unspoken rhythm that only comes from the amount of time you spend with someone,” Barrymore said. “It’s got blood and flesh eating, so I think it caters to both men and women and is a really nice balance.”
Photo credit: Netflix
