ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH’S THE DREW BARRYMORE SHOW

ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING ACTRESS REESE WITHERSPOON ON BALANCING WORK & MOTHERHOOD, HER ACTIVISM, INSPIRATION & MORE

PLUS, THE TEAM BEHIND THE EMPOWERING NEW PICTURE BOOK “I AM EVERY GOOD THING” DERRICK BARNES & GORDON C. JAMES

& “BILLY ON THE STREET” HOST BILLY EICHNER & DREW PLAY A ROUSING NEW ROUND OF “WOULD DREW BARRYMORE LIKE THAT?”

PLUS, DREW CELEBRATES THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING LIGHTING UP IN YELLOW IN HONOR OF THE SHOW’S PREMIERE

TUNE IN: “THE DREW BARRYMORE SHOW” AIRS WEEKDAYS 

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PHOTOS:

Download Photos here: https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/uisvTzzxcomh

The Empire State Building image ® is a registered trademark of ESRT Empire State Building, L.L.C. and is used with permission.

VIDEOS:

Reese Shares She Was Inspired By Drew to Start Hello Sunshine

https://youtu.be/8fRqq1Fn7gc

For Broadcast Only: https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/zp8ke0mfet8d

Drew: You not only lift people up and shine a light on them but you give them opportunities that are very rare and I’m so impressed with what you’re doing. It’s just incredible.

Reese: Thank you for saying that. I have gotten so much inspiration from so many women who are doing work like this including Ava DuVernay and Lena Waithe and yourself, when you created Flower Films that gave me courage to say, ‘Hey I can have a company too.’ I’ll never forget when you called me on the phone and I said, ‘Drew, I love that you are creating female super heroes because I have a little girl in the car,’ my daughter was young then, and I said, ‘You don’t understand there are no female super heroes.’ That was something that was so important to you but it gave me courage to start my company. When we see systems that are broken, whatever system you work in….we looked at our Hollywood system and said not good enough, there’s not enough projects for women, there’s not enough female directors, there’s not enough people of color writing and getting show running opportunities. I think that feeling that you can take control of your life, that everyone has the ability to tell their own story.

Reese on Balancing Work and Motherhood at a Young Age

https://youtu.be/DJCk1vlRwNg

For Broadcast Only: https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/jD6Zb5bE0Yr7

Drew: When I called you that day, it scared me, it intimidated me. You had these two young kids in the back and I thought God I’m so far away from that. I would be so scared if somebody put two young kids in the back of my car and said just go and take them and feed them. Cut to like years later the full circle story of irony is we were both pregnant together at my wedding with like bumping bellies, the only two sober chicks there and I was so amazed by you being this young mother who was able to take all that on. How did you balance work and motherhood at that point? Because I was just trying to balance work. How did you do both?

Reese: Yeah, to be completely candid I was terrified too. I got pregnant when I was 22 years old and  I didn’t know how to balance work and motherhood. You just do it, ya know? I didn’t know if I was going to have steady work too. I had made movies but I hadn’t established myself as someone who could demand it shoot close to my kid’s school, I didn’t have any real power or leverage within my industry. I was just like every other mom trying to figure it out and dad out there and partner and grandparent whose raising a child. There’s a lot of first of all compromise, you take the food out of your mouth, the clothes off your back, the sleep out of your life but every bit of that sacrifice is truly worth it because that’s what makes me wake up on a Sunday, it’s not movies or my job, it’s my kids.

Reese’s Activism Inspired By Her Two Teenage Children

https://youtu.be/eg77uF_TYpQ

For Broadcast Only: https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/me8ruys6L8Y8

Drew: What I really appreciate is that you are addressing social issues. You are addressing race, women’s equalities, Time’s Up. You are also really an advocate while you are finding these important things that are happening in our society and addressing them as well.

Reese: Well I have a lot of inspiration from having two teenagers in my house. Somewhere I read, ‘If you’re not talking about race and class and wealth and equality and social issue with your children they are talking about it with someone else.’ That hit me very profoundly because this is the world they are inheriting. If we don’t take our positions of influence, whatever your influence is….you have a power to influence thoughts and ideas. That’s why I love books as well. Books have changed my life by going absolutely nowhere. I grew up in Nashville and I just lost myself in a book. I felt like I could see the world, I could see other people’s opinions, I could see where people lived a completely different experience than me. I always say books are the anecdote to bigotry and small thinking, it’s about being expansive. I feel really blessed to have these kids in my life and to have all the children of the world out there, the Greta Thunbergs and Parkland kids just really inspiring us to do more and create a better world.

Derrick Barnes & Gordon C. James On The Inspiration For Their New Book, “I Am Every Good Thing”

https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/rmXbcY5L5egE

Drew: The thing that you guys do is you make an empowerment that feels like a different language for kids. I reading it as an adult feel like I’m feeding my children this rich, beautiful, nourishing meal that is going to set them on a trajectory of empowerment that feels not in the ego, but truly in the soul. Do you guys make a conscious effort of that when you create these books?

Derrick: Each and every time I sit down I try to come up with something that is a universal experience for everyone but with this project in particular I wanted to create something that counters all the negative stereotypes that exist about black and brown boys in this country. I wanted to make something that we can all relate to no matter where these babies come from. Whether they come from the suburbs or the projects. That there is a whole group of people that care about you…This is an offering for black and brown boys but also for parents who may not be black and they have children who have black friends or maybe you don’t have any black or brown boys in your life at all, and I wanted to counter all those negative stereotypes and just offer this to let them know we love our babies, we care about them and we want them to achieve the most impossible dreams that they possibly can.

Gordon: I just wanted to do work where I leave this legacy that my kids will be proud of, that my parents who have sacrificed and my grandparents who came over here from the islands as immigrants, would be proud like when they made these sacrifices that they put me in this position to do this thing and I am leaving something good behind in the world.  

Drew Barrymore & Billy Eicher Play A New Round of “Would Drew Barrymore Like That?”

https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/MGg0liZFeayj

Drew Celebrates Empire State Building Lighting Up In Yellow In Honor of The Show’s Premiere

https://drewbarrymoreshow.cimediacloud.com/r/xTojBknP5mZ2

Jessica Liik

VP of Communications

The Drew Barrymore Show

Cell: 551-486-2761