“She is completely unfiltered and honest with her life. … She’ll talk about anything that’s going on in her life in a way that connects with the viewer and hopefully helps them.”

— Jason Kurtz, EP/Showrunner, The Drew Barrymore Show

By Paige Albiniak

Throughout her eventful life, Drew Barrymore has never shied from taking risks. And for the most part, these risks have turned into successes.

In 2020, Barrymore and CBS Media Ventures launched daytime’s The Drew Barrymore Show, which she both hosts and executive-produces. As the world has moved to streaming, daytime has become one of entertainment’s most difficult places to be, with the business model becoming ever more challenged.
Making the endeavor riskier still was that the show launched in the heart of the pandemic, with Barrymore often on stage in New York, Zooming with guests with no studio audience.

“I’m really grateful that they let us launch because they had every reason not to,” Barrymore said. “The show gave us the opportunity to build something that we needed in our lives at that time — something that was joyous and optimistic and silly and human-driven. We ended up making something that felt very personal to us. In a strange way, making the show during the pandemic allowed us to not try and do the trope-y daytime segments that I never really wanted to do anyway. We got to make something much more boiled-down and a little odd. I think it actually did end up being the show that I really wanted to make.”

From Star to Brand
Five years later and headed into season six, Barrymore has turned her daytime show into a cultural touchpoint and herself into a 360 brand. At the end of the show’s fifth season, it was averaging about 1.2 million viewers an episode and was daytime television’s fastest-growing talk show, up 18% over the prior season.

“I knew from the beginning that she was going to do it differently,” Jason Kurtz, executive producer and showrunner of The Drew Barrymore Show, said. Kurtz has had a long career producing daytime talk after starting as an intern at The Rosie O’Donnell Show at Warner Bros. and going on to executive-produce Steve Harvey and Harry Connick Jr.’s talk shows at NBC. “I knew that her track record was successful and I knew she wasn’t someone who ever failed.”

Kurtz was also drawn to the platform Barrymore had built on Instagram, where she currently has 18.4 million followers, and to the fact that she was already a proven brand-builder. “Everything she was doing outside of being an actress — creating brands and finding all of these different avenues — all of that dovetailed with the interests of the daytime viewer.”

Prior to debuting her talk show, Barrymore had been developing brands for 25 years. She and Nancy Juvonen launched Flower Films in 1995, and went on to produce such films as Never Been Kissed, 50 First Dates, Donnie Darko and Fever Pitch as well as such TV shows as Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet and of course, The Drew Barrymore Show.

“I think she is one of the bravest women I have ever met,” Juvonen said. “She puts her foot forward with intention every day. They haven’t been easy steps to take, and she takes them every day. It makes me really proud.”

In 2013, Barrymore launched her own brand, Flower by Drew, which includes beauty products, a line of home products and an eyewear collection.

Ever since joining the Paramount family with the debut of Drew Barrymore, Barrymore has considered herself a brand ambassador for the company. She frequently serves as a spokesperson for all of the parent company’s television and streaming offerings, often appearing in company promotions, and she also pitched and produced a primetime revival of Hollywood Squares with herself as center square. When that show launched in January, it was the season’s most-watched unscripted series, reaching nearly 24 million unique viewers with its premiere episode.

 “I’m relieved that I never felt like I needed to make something that wasn’t true to myself. As hard as it is, as odd as it feels, for better or worse we are being ourselves. And if that doesn’t work, that will be OK.”

— Drew Barrymore

Authenticity Is Key
One of the keys to having a successful talk show is authentically connecting with the audience so they want to come back and hang out with you day after day. Kurtz said Barrymore does that in spades: “She is completely unfiltered and honest with her life. I don’t think that exists with many others. She’ll talk about anything that’s going on in her life in a way that connects with the viewer and hopefully helps them.”
After a life of playing parts, Barrymore has found true satisfaction and success in just being herself. “I’m really glad that I don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed in any way of what our show was and is,” Barrymore said. “I’m relieved that I never felt like I needed to make something that wasn’t true to myself. As hard as it is, as odd as it feels, for better or worse we are being ourselves. And if that doesn’t work, that will be OK. I’d rather it not work while we are being true to ourselves.”