In her poem “Wild Geese,” the poet Mary Oliver wrote, “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” Can someone send that to Drew Barrymore?
Just kidding. Drew Barrymore isn’t repenting for anything (nor should she!), but she does spend what feels like the equivalent of a hundred miles on her knees while interviewing guests on her show, and it’s now happened enough times to consider it her signature move. I wonder if guests who don’t bring Drew to their knees feel slighted? Do her producers prime them beforehand? “Just a heads up, if you cross a certain emotional threshold, Drew will crawl to you from across the room and weep at your feet.”
Drew, apparently, has an emotional depth that even the Library of Alexandria could not contain. When she locks into conversations on her show, she is so tuned in that she must physically (consensually!) grab her guests to further connect with them. It’s beautiful. It’s intense. Somewhere Ellen DeGeneres is going, “Dang, why did I stick to dancing?”
So let’s embark on a tour of the vast range of Drew Barrymore’s emotions, which are expressed more often than not on her knees. Occasionally, she has both hands placed on her guest. Is it always the appropriate response? I say yes.
