Drew Barrymore Was Told She Was 'Looking Too Unattractive' in “Never Been Kissed”: 'I Was, Like, Good'

"I was so scared during the whole film 'cause I knew if it didn't work we weren't gonna get another chance," the actress turned talk show host confessed

Drew Barrymore is reliving the awkwardness of high school!

During Friday's April 19 episode of her daytime talk show, Barrymore, 49, spoke about the anxiety she felt while filming 1999's Never Been Kissed.

As seen in a clip on the show's official Instagram profile, Barrymore told her guests, Hey Dude the 90s Called podcast co-hosts Christine Taylor and David Lascher, that the rom-com was her production company Flower Films' first movie. She added that in the late 90s, Hollywood executives were "very weary of actors being producers."

At the time, Barrymore believed the future of her whole company relied on the success of Never Been Kissed. "I was so scared during the whole film 'cause I knew if it didn't work we weren't gonna get another chance," she said.

Barrymore she had "the best time ever" creating the movie, but she did have to have some difficult conversations with studio executives during the process.

"I would get these calls from the studio and they were like, 'I'm sorry, but you're just looking too unattractive,'" she recalled.

Related: Drew Barrymore Brings Back 'My Boyfriend Is Out of Town' T-Shirt She Wore to Charlie’s Angels 2 Premiere in 2003 

Barrymore plays Josie Geller, a 20-something newspaper reporter in the film who is assigned to go undercover at a high school. Josie relives her fraught teenage experience and falls in love with her English teacher Sam (Michael Vartan). Jessica Alba, David Arquette, Molly Shannon, John C. Reilly, Octavia Spencer and James Franco also star.

On her talk show, Barrymore recalled her gut reaction to executives who said the awkward character wasn't pretty enough.

"I was like, 'good!'" she said, adding that the studio was persistent in telling her she was going "too far" with Josie's awkward manner and appearance.

Ultimately, Barrymore confessed the studio got its way. "I was forced to even tone it down a little bit," she said, revealing that what viewers saw was a censored version of her awkward vibes.

But the star admitted that executives had a good reason for wanting her to tone down the unpleasantness of Josie.

"And then they said something that appealed to my sensibilities rather than my ego. They were like, 'We don't want you to lose the heart 'cause you're going so far for the comedy,' " Barrymore said.

She remembered agreeing with the "great argument" and the rest is history.

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Barrymore hosted several of her Never Been Kissed castmates on The Drew Barrymore Show for a reunion in 2021, during which Vartan revealed that he got caught up in the moment while filming the climactic kiss scene.

"So I get up to the mound, and we embrace and we start kissing and you really kissed me — I mean you really kissed me, I was not ready for it in the least," he said during that appearance. "And I'm a man, I was a very young man back then and I had feelings, the feelings just happened and I very quickly realized I was in a very bad spot because I was wearing very loose, sort of slacks."

"I went off into my corner and I was thinking horrible thoughts like you know 'dead puppies, dead puppies, dead father, dead father,' " Vartan added at the time. "And so finally I was able to compose myself and luckily the subsequent scenes went on without a hitch but that was — you were a very good kisser."

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