Drew Barrymore's Career Came Full Circle With A Certain Stephen King Cameo

Peter and Bobby Farrelly's 2005 romantic comedy "Fever Pitch," based on the Nick Hornby novel, was about the relationship travails of a level-headed businesswoman named Lindsey (Drew Barrymore) as she attempted to date a funny and charming schoolteacher named Ben (Jimmy Fallon). Ben admits early in their courtship that he is a fan of the Boston Red Sox. Nay, not just a fan, but an embarrassingly devoted superfan who attends all their games. Lindsey doesn't know much about baseball, and she has to accept that, if she wants to keep seeing Ben, she'll have to attend many, many baseball games with him. She'll also have to follow his emotional ups and downs as his favorite team wins or loses.

Curiously, Hornby's original book wasn't about a baseball team, but Arsenal, an English football club. The title "Fever Pitch" makes more sense with baseball.

"Fever Pitch" was fine, and nothing more. It's affable and warm and not terribly deep. Fallon is serviceably funny, while Barrymore is 5'4" column of sunshine that could have on-screen chemistry with a tree stump. The film has a 66% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 194 reviews), and made just over $50 million at the box office.

"Fever Pitch" did, however, orchestrate a curious reunion of sorts. As it so happens, author Stephen King is an enormous Boston Red Sox fan, so the Farrelly Brothers recruited him for a cameo appearance. In one quick scene, King, playing himself, can be seen wearing his Red Sox jersey and throwing out the first pitch for a notable game. 

King and Barrymore don't directly interact, but fans of horror movies may recall that the actor got her start in two notable Stephen King adaptations: "Firestarter" in 1984 and "Cat's Eye" in 1985.

Barrymore was born into an acting dynasty. She first appeared on-screen when she was still a baby, serving as a model in a dog food commercial. She would later cameo in Ken Russell's sci-fi freakout "Altered States" before really coming to the public's attention thanks to her role in Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" at the age of six. That performance rocketed her to stardom, leading her to host "Saturday Night Live" (yes, when she was still a child) and into more and more lucrative roles.

Then, in 1984, Barrymore was cast as Charlie McGee, a girl with pyrokinetic powers, in Mark L. Lester's thriller "Firestarter," itself based on the 1980 novel by Stephen King. The film was about a mysterious government lab called the Shop that had been conducting experiments on people, hoping to give them psychic powers. Two psychic people (David Keith and Heather Locklear) escape the Shop, get married, and have Charlie, all while living on the lam, hoping Shop agents never find them. Naturally, they are discovered and a conflagration ensues, with Charlie killing dozens of people using her fiery powers along the way.

The following year, Barrymore continued her association with King by starring in Lewis Teague's anthology film "Cat's Eye." In the film, she plays a young girl who is visited at night by a malevolent homunculus that crawls out of a hole in her bedroom wall. The creature sits on her chest and threatens to smother her, until the family cat, General, chases it away. "Cat's Eye" wasn't as big a ht as "Firestarter," but it made its rounds on cable TV throughout the 1980s, so many impressionable kids saw it.

Barrymore hasn't been in any King adaptations since, but they do form the basis for her acting career.

Back in 2007, King made explicit that he was no mere passing fan of the Boston Red Sox, but a longtime obsessive. He wanted to be a part of "Fever Pitch" because he essentially was Jimmy Fallon's character in real life. King even penned an article for Entertainment Weekly explaining the depth of his baseball fandom, and how he came to write the baseball memoir "Faithful" with fellow obsessive Stewart O'Nan. He revealed his Red Sox cred, writing:

"Fallon's character has Red Sox sheets on his bed. I have a Red Sox comforter. Ben Wrightman has a Red Sox shower curtain. I have a Red Sox bath mat. We both have framed photographs of Carl Yastrzemski (although I also have — ahem — a signed Yaz ball). Judging from Ben Wrightman's closet, we have roughly the same number of Red Sox shirts: say, two thousand apiece. (I draw the line at Yankee toilet paper, though.) And the best thing in my office? A mural on the ceiling that shows all of Fenway Park on a sunny summer day." 

King is from Maine, of course, but he loves what he loves.

The Farrelly brothers are also from New England, and one might note that New England sports play a large role in most of their movies. As such, they knew how deeply the fandom for the Boston Red Sox runs and likely just gave King a call, asking if he wanted to show up and throw in a pitch for their movie. It's entirely possible that King might have shown up anyway. 

And so, the worlds of Drew Barrymore's early horror career and Stephen King's baseball obsession overlapped. Everything came full circle.