Their High School Days--Fast Times or a Slow Burn?

Maybe you have warm, fuzzy memories of your high school years--the proms, the football games, the great friendships. But let’s be honest: More than likely you were a geek with too many pimples and insecurities to count.

Perhaps you were too bright to fit in or too shy or too nerdy to look cool in the latest fashions. Of course, there was the boy you adored who never gave you the time of day or the most beautiful girl in class who treated you like dirt. . . .

Those awkward high school days are the inspiration for “Never Been Kissed,” the Drew Barrymore comedy that opens today. Barrymore plays Josie Geller, a successful 25-year-old newspaper copy editor who was such a misfit in high school she was nicknamed “Josie Grossie.”

Just what was high school like for the stars and creative team behind “Never Been Kissed”--each of whose school photo appears in the closing credits of the movie? Were they cooler than cool or “Josie Grossies”? Several of the actors, producers and the director of the romantic comedy recently fessed up about their past.

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Actor David Arquette

Fairfax High School, Los Angeles

Fairfax is so big that it wasn’t as cliquish as some of those schools. For the first part, I hung a lot with the kids who were causing mischief. We were, like, into graffiti art and break-dancing and stuff. Then I got involved in the drama program and I became even sort of sillier and geekier.

I got along with a lot of different people. I believe in that and I believe in accepting people. I guess I was thought of as cool, but I guess I was a jerk sometimes.

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Producer Nancy Juvonen

Marin Academy, San Rafael

It’s funny, my seventh and eighth grades were really my painful “Josie Grossie” years. I was overweight and desperate to be popular. The funniest thing was when we were prepping for this movie, I was going back through letters and old diaries. I found our diary from seventh grade and--it is so painful--it said, “I think we might have gotten a little more popular today because Karen spoke to me when we were at lunch.” I was just so desperate to be something.

One time, I’ll never forget it, I was in eighth grade and I was invited to eat lunch with the popular crowd. Of course, I shunned my friends and went to the spot on the lawn where the popular kids sat on a little hill. I sat behind them, still not being welcomed into the group. At the end of the lunch--this is so pathetic--they all gave me their lunch sacks to throw away. I’ll never forget it my whole life, I stood up and took them and threw them away and just kept walking. I thought, “This is too sad.”

I think that in high school, in sort of a weird way, I didn’t give up [trying to be popular], I just thought, I don’t know how I am going to manifest popularity, so I just decided to be myself.

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Actress Molly Shannon

Hawken School, Ohio

I would say eighth grade was [my geekier period]. I was raised by my dad and he would let us wear, like, crazy get-ups. I remember once for basketball practice I wore a plaid wool pantsuit with flare bottoms and the girls were, like, “My God.” All of these girls were laughing at me and I didn’t see where there was anything wrong with it. I had, like, tennis shoes with holes and my dad said, “That shows you have character.”

In high school, I wasn’t in any particular crowd, but I definitely wasn’t in the cool crowd. I pretended to be happy and stuff, but I used to draw happy and sad faces on my notebook all the time and there were lots of sad faces. I was obsessed with this boy for four years. I was in love with him and used to go watch him play basketball and dream about him. That went on for a while and then one day, finally, he said, “Take a picture, it will last longer.” I went into the bathroom and crumbled. I was a very dark young lady, to put it mildly.

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Director Raja Gosnell

Granada High, Granada Hills

I actually thought I was cool at times, but as I look back, I was pretty geeky. I pretty much was like one of the surf crowd. I was the Spicoli character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” I surfed and had long hair and said “dude” a lot. We definitely had groups. There were the jocks and the stoners. At that time we had a program called “School Within a School,” so there was that group and they were all the future Bill Gateses. There was the drama crowd. At lunch, everyone had their spots.

I think I had some tough times, but never any more than the next person. By the time I was in high school, I had a group [of friends] left over from junior high. We had our own identity. Even if no one else liked us, we knew who we were.

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Actor John C. Reilly

Brother Rice High School for Boys, Chicago

Where I grew up in Chicago was a little bit of a rough neighborhood. In grammar school, I did a lot of the experimentation most people do in high school, so by the time I finished eighth grade, I was kind of headed down the wrong path. [High school] was a big turning point for me, because I could finally focus back on what school was all about. It took me out of the schoolyard, but I was definitely [a geek]--everyone in that high school freshman year was.

It was all boys and we had to wear ties and dress shirts and slacks, so you are kind of wearing little-boy clothes because you still haven’t hit that growth spurt yet and you look like little midgets.

[In my school] there were the swimmers--that whole kind of Aquaman set with their hair turning green from the pool--then the math clique and the football guys, who were like the golden children of the school. I was a play person. I had this kind of insane collection of friends--eccentrics. The football guys thought we were nerds.

Most people kind of resented the dress code. But right around the end of sophomore year and definitely through junior and senior years, me and my friends went the opposite way. We said we are going to totally embrace the dress code and wear sport coats. We would come up with these conspiracies, like, tomorrow is international bow-tie day and then all of my friends would wear bow ties. Other guys in the school thought we were insane.

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Producer Sandy Isaac

Cherry Creek, Englewood, Colorado (9th-11th grades)

Palisades High, Pacific Palisades (12th grade)

Cherry Creek had absolute rigid social rules. There was one cafeteria where only seniors were allowed to eat. I was in a group called the freaks. We hung out at a video arcade. We weren’t allowed where the jocks ate. I was like 5 feet, 4 inches and weighed 12 pounds. I had this giant mop hair. I looked like a mop basically.

In 10th grade, I started noticing the cute girls from our clique were heading to the jock clique. I tried to transition myself and go from the freak clique to the jock clique and was completely blocked.

After my junior year, I went back to the Palisades and rekindled a lot of friendships from junior high school. So my senior year I was with another group of guys who got senior-itis very early. That group was a very social group. I kind of came into my own as a senior and I began to get comfortable with myself much more than my first three years where I struggled with my identity.