The One Thing Busy Philipps Regrets About Freaks And Geeks

There’s plenty to regret when it comes to Freaks and Geeks. Fans who watched live might regret the show did not get a second season. Fans who have binge-watched in the years since cancellation might regret missing the show during its original run. Actress Busy Philipps, who played "freak" Kim Kelly on the series has her own big regret from her time on the show. Apparently, she missed her opportunity to snag something from the set.

My only regret in my entire life and, this is true, is that I didn’t steal the blue jacket [from Freaks and Geeks]. It was my first professional acting job and I remember testing the waters with the costume people and asking them if I could take [the jacket], and they were like, ‘Well, that’s not really done…’ They weren’t going to give it to me because it was on loan from some costume warehouse archives, so in order for me to have kept it at 19 years old--during my first professional acting job--I would’ve had to have stolen it. And as much as I was really good at playing badass on TV, I wasn’t one in real life.

It’s hard to imagine Kim Kelly glowering at Lindsay or making out with Daniel without that blue jacket of hers, so it's no wonder Busy Philipps wanted to keep it. Her story to People includes the mention that Freaks and Geeks was her first professional job, which makes her desire for the wardrobe souvenir even more understandable. She kicked off a respectable acting career on the small screen after the sadly short run of Freaks and Geeks, so an iconic memento of her character would have been great to keep in her closet.

Stories of actors stealing from sets aren’t exactly hard to find. Recently, Ryan Reynolds stole a Deadpool costume from Deadpool, and Dakota Johnson snagged a flogger from her time on Fifty Shades of Grey. Such stories probably make Busy Philipps’ regret over not pilfering the jacket even worse.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that a Freaks and Geeks reunion could eventually be in the cards. There’s never been a promise of the cast coming together for another go, but a reunion has never been definitively ruled out either. Plus, the big name actors like James Franco and Seth Rogen have shown that they haven’t forgotten their times on the show. Maybe if a reunion happens, Kim Kelly will get to wear her iconic blue jacket (giving Busy Philipps another chance at snagging it from set). She may not have been enough of a badass in the acting biz at 19 to build up the nerves to steal from the wardrobe department, but she’s been working plenty in the years since Freaks and Geeks went off the air. Surely, she would have the nerve to fix her one big regret if given another opening.

Laura Hurley
Senior Content Producer

Laura turned a lifelong love of television into a valid reason to write and think about TV on a daily basis. She's not a doctor, lawyer, or detective, but watches a lot of them in primetime. CinemaBlend's resident expert and interviewer for One Chicago, the galaxy far, far away, and a variety of other primetime television. Will not time travel and can cite multiple TV shows to explain why. She does, however, want to believe that she can sneak references to The X-Files into daily conversation (and author bios).