Ryan Gosling Reveals How He Got His ‘Ken-ergy’ In The New ‘Barbie’ Movie

Today in Las Vegas, Warner Bros. Pictures surprised CinemaCon attendees during its 100-year celebration with Barbie stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and America Ferrara on-stage to discuss their new comedy and debut never-before-seen footage from the highly-anticipated live-action film.

Robbie, who is also a producer on Barbie with her LuckyChap Entertainment production company, says of bringing the beloved Mattel doll to cinemas this summer, “It was such a huge opportunity. Everyone knows Barbie and she’s never been on the big screen before.”

Barbie director and co-writer Greta Gerwig joined Robbie, Gosling and Ferrara on-stage to discuss her initial thoughts during the film’s early casting and creation process. “Margot is the person who invited me on this journey, as a producer and star. When I was writing it with Noah [Baumbach], we were just making each other laugh all the time.” Gerwig added, “I knew I was writing [Barbie] for Margot and while we were writing it, we cast Ryan. Luckily, he said yes because he was an inspiration [for Ken] without knowing him.”

When asked on-stage at CinemaCon about how he prepared to embody Ken on-screen, Gosling said, “I have to be honest – up until this point, I only knew Ken from afar. I doubted my ‘Ken-ergy.’ I didn’t see it but Margot and Greta, they conjured this out of me somehow.”

Ferrara, who has been teased in the Barbie movie marketing to be playing a human in the new film, says prior to signing onto the film, “I wasn’t a Barbie girl. It was worth the [script] read because they had a point-of-view. There were moments where I didn’t know if I was laughing or crying. By the time I finished the script, I was a Barbie girl.”

Gerwig went on to praise the Barbie film’s production design team. “I cried when I stepped onto the set for the first time. They made life-size Barbie houses! Everything was just extraordinary.”

In the new footage shared exclusively at CinemaCon, audiences got to see more of Robbie’s Barbie character in “Barbie Land” where she starts to realize that things are a bit off from her usual doll-like ways. A friend recommends that she goes to visit “Weird Barbie” (played by Kate McKinnon) for guidance, following her unusual changes.

With the popular release of its two teaser trailers over the past few months, the momentum behind Barbie seems to be second to none this year, featuring star power from all walks of life (including co-stars Issa Rae, Simu Liu and Will Ferrell) and a playful humor that moviegoers of multiple generations can likely enjoy.

Since taking its first step in 2011, CinemaCon has annually brought together leading studio heads, movie theater owners, exhibitors, vendors and more. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, when theaters across the world were forced to shutdown for several months, the dialogue at this year’s gathering has been one of resilience, having seen movie theaters around the globe successfully return to business with many profitable film released so far and once again packing theaters with moviegoers.

Barbie will be theatrically released by Warner Bros. Pictures internationally on July 19 and nationwide on July 21.