Drew Barrymore graces the cover of ELLE’s May issue and talks about her hopes of continuing to direct films and be part of more serious roles.

The 34-year-old actress tells ELLE mag, “I’m in my thirties now, and I really want to try all the things that I haven’t gotten to do yet, like directing, and doing a drama. I’ve produced and gotten to do a lot of optimistic love stories, and that was so where I was at for 10 years in my life. And now I feel like, ‘Okay, now I know how to do that. I wanted to get scared again.’ ”

Barrymore is part of the HBO drama “Grey Gardens” wherein she plays the first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She revealed that she had to prove her commitment to win the part, saying “I said, ‘Look – I have all of this inside of me, and I promise you that I will change my face to be her. I will learn how to stop talking out of the side of my mouth. I will go to school to relearn body language. I will shut out the world. I will not talk to my friends. I will give up my life for this, because I don’t think you can play this character and have a social life and balance the two mentalities.’ ”

Check out more photos from ELLE below…