While ET may have premiered over 40 years ago, it seems no time has passed for Drew Barrymore.
“I remember ET like it was yesterday, funnily enough,” Barrymore, who was just 7 years old when she appeared in the beloved Steven Spielberg film, tells PEOPLE.
Barrymore, now 49, recently spoke with PEOPLE after a taping of her self-titled talk show with John Krasinksi and Cailey Fleming, promoting their upcoming film IF. The film follows a young girl, played by Fleming, who has superpowers that give her the ability to “see everyone’s imaginary friends,” according to the synopsis.
After talking with the stars of the film, Barrymore began to think about her own “first imaginary friend”.
Drew Barrymore in ‘ET’ from 1982 and 2024.
Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images; Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images
“I think ET was definitely, in a way, my first imaginary friend that I also knew wasn’t real,” says Barrymore. “I completely understand, but I think we have to project the belief system thing into things. Whether it’s imaginary or very real and tangible, it’s part of the survival mechanism as well as an absolute delight to identify things that make us feel good, that make us believe in us, as if we believe in them.”
Barrymore, who recently teamed up with Ring for Ring Pet Portraits, previously spoke about her experience on set ET when she welcomed some of her co-stars to her show for a sweet reunion.
Drew Barrymore reflects on growing up in the spotlight at 11 months: ‘You never understand everything’
While talking to co-stars Henry Thomas, Robert MacNaughton and Dee Wallace, Barrymore admitted that she really cares about the creatures on set.
“I really loved him in such a deep way. Is it true that… what would happen?” she asked the group, recalling, “Because I would go and get him lunch.”
Thomas, who played Barrymore’s older brother Elliott in the film, said the first thing he remembers from filming was Barrymore asking the “wardrobe lady” if he could get a scarf for ET’s neck “because he’s going to be cold.”
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Drew Barrymore in ‘ET’ 1982 Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty
Wallace, who played the duo’s mother on screen, recalled how much the team put in to keep young Barrymore’s dream alive.
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“We found you there just talking to ET, so we let director Steven go [Spielberg] I know,” she recalled. “And so Steven, from that time on, appointed two guys to keep ET ‘alive’ so that whenever you came to talk to him, he could respond to you.”
Drew Barrymore will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the movie ‘ET’ with Steven Spielberg and her daughters
Barrymore recently reminisced about the iconic film in an Instagram post, sharing a clip of an interview she gave around the time the film came out in 1982. In the adorable video, the interviewer asks Barrymore if she had a hard time learning the lyrics for the film, to which she shakes her head. and answered “No”.
“Sometimes, when I take a shot, I get nervous, but I always tell myself, ‘Everybody makes mistakes,'” she added. In the caption, the star wrote: “I will forever be grateful for ET.”
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Source: HIS Education