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Playing a woman who gives birth in the movie Riding in Cars With Boys inspired Drew Barrymore to reconcile with her own mother, from whom she'd been estranged for more than a decade.

"There's a scene where my water breaks, and I yell out, 'Mom,' and it was sort of like me calling out to her," the actress told Rosie magazine for its November issue. "It was very cathartic."

The 26-year-old Barrymore said she brought along her husband, comedian Tom Green, for the reunion last year with her mother, Jaid. She still has a distant relationship with her father, John Barrymore Jr.

"Eventually we got to where we could hang out on our own, but there were a lot of real crazy emotions flying all over the place," the actress said. "The one thing my mom said to me to break the ice was that we (had) really needed to separate to become our own people before we could come together again. I respect that."

Riding in Cars With Boys, directed by Penny Marshall and co-starring Brittany Murphy, James Woods and Lorraine Bracco, opens Oct. 19.