PENCILS, PAPER, BACKPACKS … oh my!
Celebrities share their back-to-school experiences and traditions
Fresh pencils and the perfect lunch box, new clothes and the hottest notebooks. In the wind down of summer as we head into fall, a variety of celebrities time tripped back to childhood, sharing favourite moments preparing for the first day of school.
“I went to a military school. Oddly enough, every fall when it came up, the idea of putting on the uniform and going back to school was very exciting,” said Joe Morton of ABC’s Scandal.
For Katy Mixon, who stars in ABC’s American Housewife, it was all about the duds.
“Going clothes shopping. I grew up in a family of seven — six girls and one boy. My mama used to always take us to go get those backto-school clothes, and I loved it.”
Kelly McCreary of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy was all about the paper products.
“I still love a great new notebook. Super nerd,” she said. Her fellow cast member Jason Winston George had other favourite gear.
“Lunch boxes. It was all about the new lunch boxes and the backpack. Lunch box and backpack, that was my joint,” he said.
Ian Ziering, who stars in Syfy’s Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, has passed down one of his parents’ back-to-school traditions to his two kids.
“It’s taking a picture in front of the house, in front of the front door. We do it every year with my kids with a little sign: Kindergarten, first day of kindergarten, first day of first grade. It’s great. I have that from my childhood and now my kids have that,” he said. “It’s just a great picture to look back on.”
Kaitlyn Dever, in the summer film Detroit, said it was all about first-day fashion.
“You gotta bring it first day, and my mom would always get me something so rad and so cool,” she said. “I would always be co-ordinated with my sister, who’s two years younger than me.”
Salma Hayek’s favourite backto-school activity growing up in Mexico was wrapping her books with homemade covers.
“They don’t do it anymore,” she said. “Finding the paper to wrap it and the decorations. Now it’s all in the computer.
“Nobody wraps their books anymore. I remember how exciting it was, to do it all neatly. It was a lovely ritual.”
Samuel L. Jackson, her castmate in The Hitman’s Bodyguard, said he remembers hunting down the “perfect notebook that didn’t fall apart after two weeks.”
Co-star Ryan Reynolds had no specific back-to-school rituals growing up, but his oldest daughter is heading to preschool.
“I’m sure I’m the one who needs help, not her,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”
Max Greenfield, who appears in the film The Glass Castle, said backpacks stand out for him and his daughter, one of his two kids.
“She had a good backpack this year. She had a Vans backpack, which was pretty cool,” he said. “This year, we’re growing out of the Hello Kitty backpack and now you have a Vans backpack. I think later on it’s going to get terrifying when she’s like, ‘I’m wearing this to school’ and you’re like, ‘No you’re not.’ ”
Kate Beckinsale, who’s in the new film, The Only Living Boy in New York, loved the idea of marking time as the school years passed.
“You could completely reinvent yourself every year, if you wanted to, defined by your backpack and your pencil case,” she said. “I still like that, the smell of sharpening pencils and all-new erasers.”