Drew Barrymore’s making her directorial debut in a film called Whip It which is about a girl whose parents want her to do pageants but she secretly discovers Roller Derby.  Barrymore’s also in the film along with Ellen Page, Juliette Lewis, Zoe Bell (that bad ass chick in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof) and Marcia Gay Harden.  She talks to Time Out New York about the film:

Your upcoming directorial debut, Whip It, is about roller derby. Why?
I relate to a theme of it: women who have not only an alter ego but a capability. I love these women who totally have day jobs—they’re nurses and librarians and waitresses.

And then they get the shit beaten out of them at night.
Yeah—what I love about the sport is that it’s real and high stakes. And by the way, it’s scary as shit to do. I wouldn’t have guessed that the first film I directed would have a sports element, but then again it doesn’t surprise me, because I love girls getting to do what boys do.

And you totally love having bloody snot hanging out of your nose, don’t you?
I do, I do, I love it! And I love when [women] get to be women and not feel like they have to become a man in order to play in a man’s world.

The movie comes out October 2 and unlike most movies I will be seeing it the first weekend it gets released. I’m not the biggest fan of Drew Barrymore as an actress (though I adore Boys On The Side) but maybe she’ll turn out to be quite the director.

Here’s the trailer