Drew Barrymore, host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” and Bill Maher, host of the “Club Random” podcast, are two media personalties with decidedly unique interview styles. The latter errs toward a roving, stoned, hours-long approach, while the former has become known for sitting close, leaning in, building intimacy with whomever’s sitting on her couch.
Sitting herself with Maher on Monday’s episode of “Club Random,” Barrymore revealed the secret to her approach with guests on her daytime talk show, sharing that she developed her interview style as a sort of rejection to her experiences with journalists in the past.
“I love Q&A, sure, but isn’t the — I always was trying to find the point of having a conversation,” she said. “Like, I don’t know if I’m a Q&A person, and my personal experience also a lot with journalists was very Q&A and, like, they weren’t always listening to what I said because they were thinking about their next question.”
“People do it on the air, you can see them doing it,” Maher chimed in.
Barrymore posited that many journalists have an agenda going into an interview with someone like her — she didn’t want to make her guests feel that way.
“They were trying to fit the agenda in, so having had that experience at times, not everybody, but at times, I was like, ‘I want to do the exact opposite of that feeling,’” she continued. “I want to be a pilot who gets someone in the cockpit and we go flying. It becomes ‘The Little Prince,’ we go to different planets and then we come in for a landing. Like, I’ve got you, I don’t know where we’re going, but I will get you home, I promise you. And I don’t know what the box of tissues are going to be for, the spit take or the tears.”
The topic came up about 100 minutes into the episode after Maher, to his own surprise, asked what Barrymore considered a “great question.”
“Oh great, I did it once. I stumbled on a great question,” Maher joked. “I’m telling you, I’m really putting in the work on this one.”
The question at hand? “What do you splurge on?”
Barrymore eventually looped back to share her answer.
“So having ‘the questions,’ I don’t know. But if I was to go and do something really fun, it would definitely — travel. Travel is where I like to blow it out,” she said. “I love travel, I love seeing the world, I love going places with my friends, my kids. I live to travel the world.”
Elsewhere in her “Club Random” appearance, the actress and host opens up about her relationship with Adam Sandler, today’s political divide, memorable stories growing up on set and more. Watch the full 135-minute conversation below:
