Drew Barrymore's Josie Grossie MTV Movie & TV Awards Sketch
Drew Barrymore Reprises "Never Been Kissed" Role and Meets M3GAN and Tom Cruise in MTV Sketch
Image Source: Everett Collection
Drew Barrymore's "Never Been Kissed" character, Josie Grossie, is finally getting her long-awaited first kiss. Barrymore herself dropped out of her role as host of the 2023 MTV Movie & TV Awards in support of the ongoing writers' strike in the US, but her prerecorded opening sketch still made it into the 7 May show, and it finds her character travelling through various movie and TV show universes while searching for someone to love.
Barrymore was 23 when she starred in 1999's "Never Been Kissed," playing an undercover reporter who's never locked lips with anyone, let alone had any kind of romantic relationship. In the MTV Awards sketch, Barrymore dons the young version of her character's trademark scrunchie and braces and travels around to 2022's biggest movies and shows. First, she lands in a creepy scene from the movie "Smile," then she finds herself trying in vain to flirt with Daniel Kaluuya in "Nope" as the alien Jean Jacket looms above them. She's then dropped into the famous dance scene from "Wednesday," where she faces off against Jenna Ortega on the dance floor and asks her if she's on TikTok.
From there, Josie finds herself in an episode of "The White Lotus" season two, squarely in the middle of the yacht scene where Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya is panicking about murderous gays. "I'll kiss them, too," Josie suggests before she's swept into another dance-off, this time with the central villain from "M3GAN," whom she attempts to dance with until the doll pulls out a knife. From there, she's transported into a "Top Gun: Maverick" scene, until Tom Cruise's Pete Mitchell hits her in the head with a football. At last, she finds herself in the wilderness in the proximity of none other than Cocaine Bear. At the very end of the sketch, she at last finds a bit of romance with the drugged-up animal — a fittingly bizarre ending for a sketch that kicked off a very nontraditional award show.
Watch the whole sketch below.
Never been kissed... until now 🍿 #MTVAwards pic.twitter.com/RsYjRn0Jsc
— MTV (@MTV) May 8, 2023
