Everything Drew Barrymore Does To Get Ready For Her Talk Show, Including A 4AM Wake Up Time

Drew Barrymore has cemented herself as one of the bubbliest and most energetic people in daytime TV ever since she started up her show. While the show was highly anticipated, it’s had an admittedly tepid reception to its first season. Still, Barrymore doesn’t seem to have let that affect her whatsoever, and in a recent interview, she opened up about how she prepares for the program. For a daytime talk show, it starts a whole lot earlier than you’d think.

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‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ Takes A Lot Of Planning

Drew Barrymore tapes the show live five days a week from New York, although the coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed what it means to air live. With a virtual audience watching and reacting on screens instead of the standard stuffed studio, the program has figured out its best approach to replicating the “live” feel without endangering anyone’s health. The host talked with the New York Times this month about how she personally prepares for the show.

4:30 a.m.

For the titular star, the day begins well before sunrise. At 4:30 a.m., her first alarm goes off and Barrymore starts off with a workout — most of the time. “Well, that’s wishy-washy,” she jokingly told the Times. The Charlie’s Angels star has mentioned that she’ll do some form of dance-based workout, although she’s praised yoga and pilates for keeping in shape in both physical and mental ways.

6:45 a.m.

Once the star wraps up her early morning sweat session and showers, she gets to the studio around two hours after she first woke up at 6:45 a.m. From there, she hits the ground running, scoping out the latest happenings in the world and working with her writers and producers to draft the show’s opening monologue. Creating the introduction can sometimes be easier or harder depending on the news and angle they want to approach, and Barrymore and the staff prepare some of their work once they finish shooting the previous day’s episode. The team generally wraps up with their writing and are prepared to start shooting within 75 minutes or so.

9 a.m.

Once the crew is comfortable and ready to shoot, they move to the set itself, usually by 8:15 a.m. After getting the virtual audience and crew members in place, the show starts taping at 9 a.m. Eastern, though it airs at hundreds of stations around the country. The Drew Barrymore Show runs for an hour and sees the host do everything from revealing organizational hacks to trying out new recipes to making quick friends with her guests. After the credits roll, she gets right back to working with her team on the next episode. Somewhere around 5:30 p.m., thirteen hours after her day started, she makes it back home and goes into “mom mode” for her two kids.

Drew Barrymore Stays Busy

It’s certainly not a typical 9 to 5 job, that’s for sure. While we’re sure the passion — and paycheck — go a long way in making it manageable, Barrymore still admits that it’s a high-energy lifestyle. “It’s a lot, but you know, what’s the alternative?” she explained. “There’s none. We got one life. This is it. I’m going to burn the [expletive] out of that candle at every moment.”