Peter Ford relives the trauma of being a teenager with Never Been Kissed director Raja Gosnell and the movie’s producer and star, Drew Barrymore.

THE BLUNDER YEARS

Josie Geller, a meek and mild sub-editor at the Chicago Sun-Times who’s never had a serious relationship, finally persuades her editor that she deserves a shot at being a reporter. Her first assignment is to go undercover as a pupil at a local high school, because the editor thinks Josie will get a story on what today’s teenagers are really like. What he doesn’t know is that, for Josie, high school was an excruciating nightmare that she still hasn’t recovered from.

"I think everyone has had some kind of school experience that they wish they could do over or wish they could do better," says Never Been Kissed director Raja Gosnell. "There’s something about those years that sears them onto your psyche, so the chance to go back and do them again is something I think everyone has fantasised about."

The film stars Drew Barrymore as Josie, alongside David Arquette, Leelee Sobieski and veteran director Garry Marshall in a classic fish-out-of-water comedy that taps into a universal fantasy.

Barrymore, who executive-produced the movie through her own company, Flower Films, saw Never Been Kissed as a chance to be both serious and funny. "High school’s such an interesting place because you’re trying to figure out what kind of person you want to be and it’s definitely the swan theory," she says. "I mean, I think even popular kids felt awkward inside, and there were nights where you sat home and you watched every car drive by hoping that one would pull into your driveway - and it never did.

Or you’re talking to someone you’re in love with and you go to the bathroom and you see that you’ve got a giant booger hanging from your nose - there’s great humour to be had in that. I thought it was interesting to break it down and get into the pain and humour of the fact that your exterior doesn’t count as much as we’re made to think it does."

This is a theme that, in Never Been Kissed, is explored via flashbacks to Josie’s miserable years as an overweight and dowdy teenager, who is known to her classmates as Josie Grossie but who yearns to be accepted by the cool clique. "It’s about the most important thing to me in life, which is: Who are you on the inside? That’s where everything lies - all the beauty, all the ugliness. The outside is sort of the shell you work with," says Barrymore, who is almost unrecognisable in her incarnation as Grossie. "Creatively, it was the funnest and most stimulating to play Grossie. I loved her: she may look odd, but she’s one of the most beautiful people in that school."

Josie (Drew Barrymore) mixes it with the sympathetic English teacher (Michael Vartan).	Josie loses it big-time on a night-club stage. "I love making fun of myself,"said Barrymore of shooting that particular scene.
David Arquette as Josie’s slacker brother Rob, who ends up going back to school with her.