Drew Barrymore admits her friends became her family when she was growing up.

The 39-year-old actress - who is married to Will Kopelman with whom she has 20-month-old Olive and one-month-old baby Frankie - reunites with her '50 First Dates' co-star Adam Sandler in comedy 'Blended' which sees two families come together and the screen beauty insists family is about those who give you a ''place in the world''.

Talking to Variety.com, Barrymore said: ''I appreciate that terms like 'modern family' and 'blended' have become familiar in the culture as ways to describe a pride in a family that doesn't look a certain way.

''I think that my family looks traditional from the outside, but I also know that I had kind of 'zero-point-zero' family growing up, and it was my friends that became my family and they gave me a sense of place in the world and they gave me tough love.''

Barrymore believes families have ''no rules'' and accept you for who you are, being ''supportive'' and ''honest''.

She added: ''I think there are no rules. I think of family as where you feel safe. It's where you feel supported, and it's where people are being deathly honest with you.''