Drew Barrymore is looking back on her teen years with zero regrets.
“I also was someone who got taken away and put in a place for two years,” Barrymore told Mae Martin on the Friday, October 24, episode of The Drew Barrymore Show regarding her experience as a teen in a drug rehab facility, adding that getting help was “the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I did not know that. I mean, I know that you were a wayward teen — as was I, and I was in rehab and stuff — but I didn’t know that you were at one of those places,” Martin, 38, responded.
The star of Wayward, a movie centered around two teens who attend a school for troubled youth, shared that the film is partly inspired by Martin’s childhood friend Nicole, who lived in a similar program.
Barrymore told Martin, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, that her portrayal of such an institution is very accurate.
“I didn’t know that about you, but watching the show there was way too much accuracy,” she said. “It was too real for me in that element where I knew there was no way you weren’t telling an authentic perspective.”
Martin agreed, adding that now as an adult, they feel “so protective” of young people who may be experiencing similar difficulties.
“And I don’t know about you, but now, as an adult, I feel so protective of young people and having had that experience of being pathologized at a very young age for things that are just kind of… yeah, I think that all went into it,” they said.
The duo also agreed that watching the series is not a heavy or depressing experience, despite its subject matter. Barrymore also noted that she experienced something of a breakdown when she turned 40, but added that things are much better now.
“We pull ourselves up, hopefully, and we find people that encourage us to tell the truth and to finally have the opposite of shame, which is what comes with any type of erratic behavior or society telling you ‘that’s not appropriate at this age’ or ‘what you’re doing is out of control,” she said. ”That is shame. And when you live with shame, it is crippling.”
