Drew Barrymore recalls hurting her back ‘really badly’ while filming ‘Fever Pitch’

Even 20 years on, Drew Barrymore is still feeling the effects of plummeting into Fenway Park’s outfield while shooting her and Jimmy Fallon’s baseball-themed rom-com, Fever Pitch. 

The film, celebrating its 20th anniversary, is based on Nick Hornby’s 1992 novel of the same name and details the complicated relationship between cool executive Lindsey (Barrymore) and her Red Sox-obsessed boyfriend, Ben (Fallon). When Ben ultimately agrees to sell his season tickets to prove to Lindsey that he’s serious about their future, she purchases a ticket to the Yankees-Red Sox playoff game that he’s attending and sprints barefoot across the grass in the final inning in order to prevent him from making the sale. 

While the moment may have looked effortlessly romantic onscreen, it certainly didn’t feel that way — at least, not for Barrymore. “There’s a scene where I go on the Green Monster, the wall, and I fall and when I did that, I fell really badly on my back,” she tells Entertainment Weekly. “And so you’ll see me fall and I start wincing and screaming — that was all real. And then I had to keep running anyway, and I still have a bad back. I’m like, ‘Did it happen on Fever Pitch?’”

The 50-year-old actress, who also serves as a producer on the film, is a firm believer that Ben and Lindsey have not struck out yet and are still together to this day.

“I think so, absolutely. And going to the games and living their life,” she says. “Hopefully, the film is a metaphor for couples who have to accept those things that both of them have when they enter the relationship, and how they figure it out together. You know, no one’s coming in with no baggage!”

Ben and Lindsey, in particular, are coming into their relationship with their very own unique baggage — Lindsey with her dedication to her career, and Ben with his diehard devotion to the Red Sox. His unwavering loyalty causes Lindsey pause throughout the film, especially when she expresses her fear that large life events like giving birth may be overshadowed by the team’s schedule. 

“Sometimes your baggage can be like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to fear you won’t be there when I’m giving birth, because you got to go to a game. So be there when I’m giving birth, but then we’ll go to the game with our baby, and this will be a big part of our lifestyle,’” Barrymore says. “And I just thought it was so real, the thing that someone is obsessed with, and lives their life by… how are you going to navigate that as a couple?” 

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It also helps that Barrymore and Fallon also happened to have “the best time making” the Farrelly brothers-directed film, too. 

“I loved watching the Farrelly brothers — who were my favorite directors, like Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber, they’re still my favorite movies — be sensitive and make a movie that was very funny, but I thought very gentle and emotional,” she says. “I was so happy to see that side of them because they are those guys and I was like, ‘Wow, the Farrelly brothers with heart, man. This is awesome.’”

Barrymore’s favorite memory from her time on set, however, was getting a front row seat to the real-life romance that unfolded between Fallon and her Flower Films co-founder, Nancy Juvonen. Fallon and the producer began dating, tied the knot in 2007, and now share two children.

“The person who changed my life in the most dramatic way, I got to somehow be in something that helped her find happiness,” Barrymore adds of Juvonen. “She’s just my favorite person that I just keep thinking, ‘Thank God they found each other. I’m so glad I had anything to do with that.’”

She continues, “It’s the best when you want people you love to be happy, and you get to witness it starting. And so Fever Pitch, to me, is the promise that good things happen to good people.”