Director Greta Gerwig Talks 'Barbie' and Working with Margot Robbie
Moviefone speaks with director Greta Gerwig about 'Barbie.' "I was terrified because I was not even sure where to start with a 'Barbie' movie," she said.
Opening in theaters on July 21st is the long-awaited ‘Barbie,’ which is based on the famous Mattel toy and was co-written by Oscar nominees Greta Gerwig (‘Lady Bird’) and Noah Baumbach (‘Marriage Story’), and directed by Gerwig.
What is the plot of ‘Barbie’?
After being expelled from the utopian Barbie Land for being less-than-perfect dolls, Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) go on a journey of self-discovery to the real world.
Who is in the cast of ‘Barbie’?
Margot Robbie ('Babylon'), Ryan Gosling ('The Gray Man'), America Ferrera ('End of Watch'), Rhea Perlman ('Poms'), Will Ferrell ('The Lego Movie'), Kate McKinnon ('Bombshell'), Issa Rae ('Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'), Hari Nef ('Meet Cute'), Alexandra Shipp ('X-Men: Apocalypse'), Emma Mackey ('Death on the Nile'), Sharon Rooney ('Dumbo'), Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan ('Bridgerton'), Ana Cruz Kayne ('Little Women'), Ritu Arya ('Polite Society'), Kingsley Ben-Adir ('Secret Invasion'), Simu Liu ('Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings'), Scott Evans ('Almost Love'), Ncuti Gatwa ('The Last Letter from Your Lover'), John Cena ('Fast X'), Helen Mirren ('Shazam! Fury of the Gods'), Emerald Fennell ('The Danish Girl'), Michael Cera ('Superbad'), and Ariana Greenblatt ('65').
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of sitting down in-person with co-writer and director Greta Gerwig to talk about her work on ‘Barbie,’ why she wanted to direct the movie, working with actress and producer Margot Robbie, and Ryan Gosling’s hilarious performance as Ken.
'Barbie' co-writer and director Greta Gerwig.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch it.
Moviefone: To begin with, what was your first reaction to idea of a Barbie movie, and once you agreed to be a part of the project, what tone and direction did you want to take the film in?
Greta Gerwig: I had been wanting to work with Margot Robbie and she had the rights and was setting it up with her company at Warner Bros. She came to me and said, “Would you like to write this movie?" I jumped at the chance because it was her, and I was like, "Yes, I would love to." I was also terrified of it because I was not even sure where to start with a Barbie movie. I think there was something about it that seemed like such a tricky problem to solve that it felt a bit of a puzzle. What's the vantage point? How do we get into this? Then once Noah and I had written the script together and we had the script, that's when I thought, "Oh, I love this and I don't want anyone to direct it but me." So then I said, "I have to direct it," and they thank goodness, let me.
Margot Robbie as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ 'Barbie,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. Copyright: © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
MF: What was it like working with Margot Robbie and why was she the right actress to play this specific version of Barbie?
GG: I mean, Margot's a dream as a producer, and as an actor, she's everything. I mean, she can do anything you want 10 times over, backwards in heels. She's just an extraordinary actress. I always knew it was going to be hers so when we were writing it, I knew it was going to be hers. So that was always in my mind, but I think that as we worked on it, as we started doing rehearsals and started reading, it just changed and got deeper and more dimensional because I started to know her really well as a person, as an actor, and it was something that evolved alongside her.
Related Article: Greta Gerwig Directing ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ Movie
(L to R) Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ 'Barbie,' a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. Copyright: © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
MF: Finally, can you talk about Ryan Gosling’s performance as Ken and the direction you wanted to take that character?
GG: I mean, Ryan is jaw-dropping. He's incredible in this movie. It's the same thing I like about Margot is that Ryan is incredibly funny, but he never does it in a way that's making fun of the character, it's always inside the character. He takes it very seriously, which is why it's so funny. I actually also wrote it for him, which I can't believe still that he said yes because I didn't know him. He wasn't sure at first, and then I waited him out and he finally was like, "Oh, they're not going to leave, they're still here," which was me and Margot. We just wouldn't let him not do it. Yeah, and what he brought to it was just he committed beyond any way I would ever imagine in my wildest dreams he would commit. We texted about it and talked about it for a year before we started shooting. We came up with the idea of his Flo Jo dojo mink. But we were texting back and forth pictures of like, we both love Sylvester Stallone and we were like, “What about this look? What about that look?" Then there's like a pair of glasses he wears in the movie when he puts on the second pair of glasses that were based on the glasses that the ballet director from ‘The Red Shoes’ wears. So they are these cat eye glasses and they're just such wonderful glasses. I mean, we went so detailed with it and it was like references we gathered for so long. I was sort of slightly terrified when he showed up. I was like, "What if he doesn't want to do any of this?" But he showed up and just committed, bleached his hair, did the whole thing, shaved his legs, and then there we were.
Director/Writer Greta Gerwig attends the 'Barbie' Press Junket Photo Call at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. Photo by Eric Charbonneau.
Other Movies Similar to ‘Barbie:'
- 'Clue' (1985)
- ‘Transformers' (2007)
- 'Kit Kittredge: An American Girl' (2008)
- ‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' (2009)
- 'The Lego Movie' (2014)
- 'Trolls' (2016)
- 'The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part' (2019)
- 'Lady Bird' (2017)
- 'Little Women' (2019)
- 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts' (2023)
- 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' (2023)
- 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' (2023)
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‘Barbie’ is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment, and Mattel Films. It is set to release in theaters on July 21st.
