The last time I thought about Drew Barrymore as much as I did last week was when a 13-year-old me wondered who the hell that was playing the hot Swedish receptionist Bjergen Kjergen in Wayne’s World 2. It’s hard to believe Barrymore is only 34. She’s been active as an actress for literally my entire life, especially as a fixture in a string of successful romantic comedies when I started getting seriously interested in film in the mid-90s. I can’t remember really loving anything she’s been in, but I’ve always liked her. I think most people do; her natural sweetness always shines through in whatever role she’s given, even when she’s appearing in something as mind-numbing as the Charlie’s Angels movies.

But lately Barrymore seems to be breaking out of the romantic comedy rut with two interesting pieces of work. I finally caught the HBO film Grey Gardens on DVD recently and can’t remember the last time a performance surprised me more than her truly heartbreaking turn as socialite-turned-recluse “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale. As many movies as she’s been in, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Barrymore play anything more complicated than a slight variation on her own perky, hippie-ish self. Here, she’s a revelation. We know the Little Edie we saw in the classic documentary of the same name: witty, childlike, resentful of the needy mother who essentially kept her locked in a decaying prison of a house for most of her life. But Barrymore’s performance vividly recreates Beale’s early years, which makes her fate all the more devastating. The young Little Edie craves independence early, happily leaving a coddled existence in the Hamptons for a cramped apartment in New York City. Then a brief fling with a married Cabinet Secretary sends her into a tailspin, and our own memories of Barrymore as America’s sweetheart with a drug habit give Edie’s arc a tragic resonance that the greatest character actress in the world wouldn’t be able to touch. But there’s no mistaking that she’s got enormous acting chops to back up her natural charisma. She nails every one of Little Edie’s many quirks, from her excitable walk/dance to the unique accent from the South Fork of Long Island that she effortlessly picks up. It’s a shame the film wasn’t given at least a limited theatrical run, because she’d be a shoo-in for a Best Actress nomination.

A far different but equally appealing project is Barrymore’s upcoming directorial debut, a roller derby comedy called Whip It! with a very funny trailer that was released online last week. This could be yet another quickie teen comedy, but Barrymore seems to have taken it very seriously, assembling a fantastic ensemble cast including Ellen Page’s first starring role since Juno along with Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Zoё Bell, Daniel Stern and Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat. She’s also working with Paul Thomas Anderson’s editor Dylan Tichenor and Wes Anderson’s cinematographer Robert Yeoman. We’ll have to wait until October to see if the finished product’s any good, but it certainly has a lot more promise than your typical actor-to-director vanity project, and may mark the beginning of a new path in a career that already spans three decades.