John Krasinski appeared on this morning’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show to promote his new movie IF — but what he got instead was an embarrassing blast from the past when host Drew Barrymore pulled up a photo of him in high school.
Krasinski was also joined by his IF co-star Cailey Fleming, who recently attended her prom and is gearing up to graduate a year early from high school.
“Come on! I was gonna say — did you look that cool in high school? I did not,” Krasinski said after Barrymore displayed Fleming’s prom pics on the screen.
What The Office star probably wasn’t expecting was for Barrymore to then pull out a photo of him awkwardly leaning against a tree while wearing a button-down and a tie in his high school days.
“You better stop it right now, by the way,” Barrymore gushed, before Krasinski chimed in, “No, you should stop it is what you should do. Stop showing it.”
The trio couldn’t stop laughing at the actor for “casually leaning against a tree” in the photo.
“‘Oh, are you taking a picture? Let me find this tree over here.’ What? With like my dad’s tie on,” Krasinski said, to which Barrymore replied, “You’re so cute and lovely though. You look like such a sweet young gentleman.”
The photo came back up during the “Final Five” segment when Barrymore asked her guests to describe the most embarrassing moment in their lives that they can laugh at now.
“Leaning on that tree,” Krasinski joked.
Elsewhere in the interview, Krasinski revealed how he and Emily Blunt‘s children inspired him to write IF, which follows Fleming’s character as she embarks on a journey to reunite forgotten imaginary friends (that she can see) with their respective kids.
“I spent so many hours standing in a doorway watching our kids go into a magical world that as parents we’re not invited into,” he said. “I just said to Emily, I was like, ‘It’s just so beautiful.’ But not just the joy, it was the authenticity and the fearlessness. They were whoever they wanted to be, however they wanted to be and they were so confident about it.”
However, Krasinski said he started to see his kids’ lights “go out” when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“Their imagination games became fewer and fewer. They started letting fear and the real world in and I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s the definition of growing up,’” he recalled. “They said, ‘Daddy, are we gonna be OK?’ I said, ‘I gotta write this movie right now so that magical world that you created, it’s always there. You can always go back and you’ll always have a friend that has your back so don’t worry. Even in these bad times, just turn around and go back and we’ll get through it.’”
The Drew Barrymore Show airs on weekdays on CBS. You can check the website for local airtimes.
