Drew Barrymore Was Asked To 'Tone Down' In Never Been Kissed: 'You’re Too Unattractive'

Playing the lead role in her first official film under her Flower Films Production, Drew Barrymore stole hearts the second she hit the big screen with Never Been Kissed. Playing Josie Geller in the 1999 romantic comedy, the film shows Barrymore in the role of an aspiring writer who poses as a high school student to study teen culture. While the film turned out to be a success, performing well at the box office and also emerging as Barrymore’s most beloved romantic comedy, it wasn’t very easy for the actress as she was initially asked to “tone it down” for her character.

In the recent episode of her popular talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, the actress spoke about her experience while filming Never Been Kissed. In a conversation with her guests, Christine Taylor and David Lascher, Barrymore began by noting how people were very weary of actors being producers, further adding, “A lot of it wasn’t necessarily working, and it didn’t mean because you were an actor, you knew how to produce the film. And it was about the economics. So if you didn’t make the film work, and you produced it as an actor, you are likely to not be able to do it again.”

She also shared that the pressure of working as an actor as well as a producer made her feel very stressed as she feared that there wouldn’t be a second chance if the film didn’t work out.

During this while, the actress also recalled how she used to get calls from the studio asking her to tone down her performance as she was looking far “too unattractive.”

She explained that she agreed with their request as their remarks that she had “gone even farther” touched her sensibilities and not her ego.

“They were like, ‘We don’t want you to lose the heart because you’re going so far for the comedy.’ And I was like, ‘Great argument. Let me dial it back a little bit.’ And so Josie what you see there is me dialed back and it came out and it worked. And we got really lucky and I’m very, very grateful and I would walk around just going I can’t believe this work. We’re gonna get a second shot,” she added.

Besides Drew Barrymore in the lead role, the film also features actors like David Arquette, Michael Vartan, Leelee Sobieski, Jeremy Jordan, Molly Shannon, Garry Marshall, and John C. Reilly.