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Barbie (2023)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Summary[]
Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) are having the time of their lives in the colorful and seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land. However, when they get a chance to go to the real world, they soon discover the joys and perils of living among humans.
Male Deaths[]
- None
Female Deaths[]
- Rhea Perlman [Ruth Handler] (Ghost)
Trivia[]
- Barbie is 23% larger than everything in Barbieland to mimic the awkward, disproportionate scale that real Barbies and Barbie activity sets are produced in. This is why Barbie sometimes appears too large for things like her car or why ceilings seem to be too low in the Dreamhouses.
- According to Ryan Gosling, he accepted the role of Ken after seeing his daughter's Ken doll lying face down in the mud next to a squished lemon. He then took a shot of the doll and lemon and sent it to Greta Gerwig, saying, "I shall be your Ken, his story must be told."
- Composer Mark Ronson wrote the song "I'm Just Ken" largely as a joke, and recorded a demo for Greta Gerwig not seriously expecting it to be included on the soundtrack. However she liked the song, and when she shared it with Ryan Gosling he felt so strongly that it added to the character of Ken he successfully advocated for it to be made a musical number in the film. Ronson remarked that he was amazed how much Gosling's interpretation of the song improved upon his original intent.
- When Barbie and Ken are first in the car going to the real world, the odometer on the dashboard reads 031959, a reference to the first Barbie doll launching in March 1959.
- America Ferrera's husband in the film is played by her husband in real life, Ryan Piers Williams.
- Simu Liu showed that he could backflip with a demonstration during dance rehearsals. Ryan Gosling's reaction inspired Greta Gerwig to rivalize their Kens in the story.
- Margot Robbie had two requests for director Greta Gerwig: she wanted a slide for Barbie's house that would go from her bedroom to her swimming pool and a mermaid Barbie to be featured in the movie somehow.
- Greta Gerwig refused to cut a scene with the older lady by holding her ground against studio executives saying "I love that scene so much, and the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She's a legend. It's a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way - it doesn't lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, 'Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.' And I said, 'If I cut the scene, I don't know what this movie is about.'"
- Michael Cera plays Allan in the film, who is Ken's best friend introduced in 1964. His girlfriend-turned-wife Midge also appears in the film played by Emerald Fennell. Both characters were canonically married in 1990 with the Wedding Day Midge dolls.
- Margot Robbie wore 18 wigs throughout the film.
- Barbieland was created almost entirely using practical effects and clever scenic design choices. The backgrounds are all hand-painted backdrops, and most locations like the Dreamhouses were real sets. The transition scenes between Barbieland and the real world were also practical, using old-school movie tricks to achieve the feeling of motion, such as crew members turning cranks to make waves move in the ocean.
- Margot Robbie revealed that she found an old bucket list with one of the goals being "Meet Ryan Gosling" while working on this movie.
- An early concept for the film involved all of the Barbies in Barbieland having "paddle hands," modeled after real Barbies' molded plastic hands. However, the idea performed poorly in early camera tests, and was eventually scrapped in favor of the actors using their hands as normal. Kate McKinnon was supposedly the best cast member at "paddle hands" and never broke them once.