Actress Sarah Drew, most known for her role as Dr. April Kepner in the hit medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, has been in the entertainment business since her teenage years. In a recent conversation with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen on their podcast Broad Ideas, the 44-year-old actress recalled one particular role and how it impacted her.
From 2004 to 2006, Drew portrayed the role of Hannah Rogers in the drama series Everwood. The actress described her character as the stereotypical “ugly duckling”. Back then, social media didn’t exist, but viewers could visit online message boards to post thoughts and remarks about particular topics. The actress admitted getting addicted to reading those posts, including the harsh and scathing comments she later realized she would have been better off not seeing.
“It’s the worst thing ever. It was so bad for me. Because my character, I came to play the ugly wallflower best friend of Emily VanCamp. I had glasses and frizzy hair and not a stitch of makeup. I was the ugly one, the ugly duckling.”
As is the case today, people in the entertainment industry couldn’t avoid being criticized, sometimes for the most trivial reasons. Drew told the hosts that not all the comments were bad, with some even praising her acting chops, but what stuck were the horrible ones. She even recited one that she remembers verbatim: “Sarah Drew is so ugly that the television cracks every time she steps in front of it.”
She wasn’t conscious about her appearance growing up
As a child, Drew didn’t spend time worrying about whether she was pretty or not. She wasn’t interested in fashion and didn’t wear makeup, but she was driven to succeed in whatever she did. The Everwood role came when she was in her early 20s, and seeing those comments hit her hard. It was then that self-doubt crept in, and she found herself asking, “Am I an ugly person? I guess maybe I’m an ugly person.” She added that reading and absorbing those comments was “so damaging” to her.
All that happened back then, and now Drew, who is a mother of two, is concerned about all the negativity floating around social media and how it could affect her children, just like how it impacted her. “We are not built for this feedback. Our nervous systems are not built to take in all of this feedback,” she stated.
In the podcast Call It What It Is, Drew also talked about the other roles she’s had, saying they were always the odd characters. “It’s always like a weird stalker who is after Mr. Schue, or the pathetic wife who’s married to a man who doesn’t love her, or the really ugly best friend to the Emily VanCamp character in Everwood,” the actress said. That only changed when her Grey’s Anatomy character began dating Jesse Williams’ character Dr. Jackson Avery.
Now, Drew is ecstatic about playing romantic leads and has starred in a few TV movies for Hallmark and Lifetime. She currently portrays the role of Emily Lane — a Christmas store owner who aids in solving murders in her town — in the Hallmark series Mistletoe Murders.
Published: Nov 28, 2024 07:15 am