Drew Barrymore follows in the footsteps of Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks and Sean Penn by moving behind the camera to make her directorial debut with Whip It.
Acting was in Barrymore's blood and she followed in the family tradition, making her debut in Altered States in 1980.
But it was the role of Gertie in E.T which shot her to fame, nominated for a Best Newcomer Bafta.
And the award nominations kept on coming as she picked up a Best performance by a Young Actor at the Saturn Awards for her performance in Firestarter.
That same year she was also nominated for a best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for Irreconcilable Differences.
But her sudden fame came with a price she struggled with drugs during her teenage years, in rehab at the age of thirteen.
But by her late teens Barrymore had turned things around and was ready to return to the spotlight, for all the right reasons.
While the likes of Poison Ivy, released in 1992, was a failure she picked up a second Golden Globe nomination for Gun Crazy that same year.
But by the mid nineties she had transformed into a box office success with hits such as Boys On The Side, Scream before moving into comedies such as The Wedding Singer.
The actress moved into the business side of the industry at this time when she formed her production company Flower Films with Nancy Juvonen.
Never Been Kissed was their first movie, which also starred Barrymore, which went onto be a box office success.
Into the noughties and Barrymore continued to be a hit at the box office, as well as beginning to turn her hand to producing.
She produced both Charlie's Angels movies as well as the cult movie Donnie Darko in 2001.
Most recently she has mixed and matched her role as she lent her voice to seven episodes of Family Guy before moving onto romantic comedies such as Music and Lyrics and He's Just Not That Into You.
But it was for a TV movie, made for HBO, that she finally got her hands on a Golden Globe, she picked up Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her role of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens.
And this week she is back with Whip It, which sees her take the plunge and move behind the camera for the very first time.
Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) has grown unhappy with the apparent small-town Texas life of Friday night football and beauty pageant competition, the football championed by her father Earl (Daniel Stern) and the pageants by her mother Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden).
She commiserates with her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) at their waitressing jobs. Pash has a plan to get out: she is applying to Ivy League schools. Bliss just wants to get out and needs a plan and a calling.
She finds it during a shopping trip to Austin, Texas where she picks up a flyer for a Roller Derby event, schemes to attend, gets invited to try out and becomes Babe Ruthless, her alter-ego roller derby character.
She makes the team, lies about her age, works hard to succeed, experiences her first love with the young lead singer of an Indie rock band, gets disappointed in love, bonds with her new family of roller derby girls, fights with her mother to escape the beauty pageant and live her new dream as roller derby star.
She manages to reconcile all of this, impress and win over her parents and friends, and charts an ambiguous goal to move to Austin, continue with Roller Derby, and live her new life.
Barrymore also appears in the movie as well as being on producing duties. She just acts in her next movie Going The Distance with Justin Long.
Whip It is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Drew Barrymore