Gary Levin

USA TODAY

So what exactly is the Santa Clarita Diet?

Netflix has been coy about its newest comedy, due Feb. 3, that stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant (Justified) as Sheila and Joel Hammond, married Realtors in the mountainous and placid Los Angeles suburb.

Review: Netflix's 'Santa Clarita' is a diet that's definitely worth keeping

But we can reveal that the “dramatic change” Sheila undergoes in the series opener is, in fact, death. And while they tend to their open houses and teenage daughter, the couple must sate Sheila’s unbridled id and undead hunger, first with raw meat and, eventually, the human kind.

Chirps Barrymore: “If you ate nothing but protein every day, you’d really thin out!”

(Fake diet ads are part of Netflix’s marketing campaign, to be unveiled during Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards.)

The show was created by Victor Fresco, whose quirky humor in shows such as ABC’s Better Off Ted and Fox’s Andy Richter Controls the Universe didn’t find a big-enough broadcast audience. But last year, Fresco’s timing was impeccable, even though at first Barrymore thought otherwise.

She hasn’t worked much since her daughters, Olive, 4, and Frankie, 2, were born, and was going through a tough divorce, her third: “My whole personal life was falling apart,” she says.

But the actress was intrigued by the darker turn and some strange parallels with Sheila, and asked Fresco whether her character’s death could mark a dual transformation. “What if she finds herself, and we do this sort of Cro-Magnon type of evolution with her over the course of the 10 episodes. No gimmicks, no prosthetics, just an awakening,” Barrymore says. “I just really enjoyed just shedding a snakeskin with her, so it became a really fun obstacle that I wasn’t even planning for but seemed so conducive and fun and healthy for my own life.”

Exactly how she became undead is uncertain. When we meet her in the series opener, she's just not feeling well. "Presumably, she has been exposed to something — although we don’t know what — which is making her feel a bit off," Fresco says.

In spite of their newfound challenge, which involves guest stars such as Nathan Fillion, who plays a rival agent, Sheila and pot-smoking Joel are happily married and supportive in their tract house. (The show was filmed almost entirely in Santa Clarita.)

Sure, there are obstacles involving their teenage daughter. Abby (Liv Hewson), neighboring cops and their wives, but “there’s a real optimism to the show,” Barrymore says. “I don’t want to watch a show about a couple fighting and falling apart, I can’t handle it right now. It’s not heavy, but it’s not lacking in a sort of sweetness, if you will. But it’s also got bite and backbone and balls.”

And limbs and entrails, too. “I think it’s a very perfect recipe for 2017, and I had no idea in early 2016 when I was trying to figure out if this was even possible that it would be so right for my life,” she says.

“I like things that are easy to digest. Pun intended.”



