The live action feature debut of Barbie is one of the most hyped movies of the year. Rory Doherty looks at why Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were destined to bring Barbie and Ken to life.
Rarely has an upcoming release occupied so much cultural space as Barbie, but with everything we’ve seen from the film—the incredible press outfits, the extensive and loveable cast, and the trailers we’ve had on loop—it looks like Barbie deserves it.
But for those wondering why the most hyped film of the year ended up being a corporate promotional tie-in, it’s worth breaking down why its two celebrity stars, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, were fated to play the roles of super-couple Barbie and Ken long before the cameras started rolling.
Margot Robbie
Margot Robbie was a movie star from the moment appeared on-screen—okay, maybe not on Neighbours, but rather her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s difficult to imagine a more seismic breakout role than one of Scorsese’s fiery women, and Robbie proved she was everything; hilarious, sexy, and commanding. You can trace a direct line from this attention-grabbing co-lead part to the “She’s Got It All” vibe Barbie has been associated with for decades.
Within a couple of years, her It Girl status was acknowledged in a playful cameo in The Big Short (which Gosling also starred in…) where she explained subprime mortgages directly to the audience while lounging in a bathtub. Not exactly the most difficult shoot of her career.
It wasn’t long before she was booked as one of comic books’ most beloved characters—the Joker’s squeeze, Harley Quinn. She remained a highlight of the three films she starred in (Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad, each an improvement) as she learnt into the silly, dangerous, and anarchist shades of the character. Her cartoonish but sharp clownery (not to mention her deft physical performances) has clear links to the larger-than-life Barbie we’re expecting to see soon.
For a couple years, Robbie got Oscar nods for her dramatic roles in real-life scandal stories, but even I, Tonya and Bombshell packed enough heightened, pop sensibilities to demonstrate she wasn’t content with being a purely dramatic performer—and humour remained a key element to both films.
Recently, Robbie has appeared in films pastiching Hollywood of old, taking roles as real or fictitious ingénues that comment on her own star status. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Babylon prove she can lampoon both earnest, doe-eyed starlets and in-your-face, riotous talent, and the films play on how she and other women have been unfairly perceived by unsympathetic audiences—is she an naive beauty or a feisty hustler?
It’s these meta-commentaries that makes her perfect for a Barbie ready to find her identity when she leaves the shelter of her dream house for the real world.
Ryan Gosling
It’s important that no harm ever comes to Ryan Gosling. The Canadian treasure had, err, odd career beginnings—who else gets to boast about appearing in Goosebumps, Young Hercules, and Remember the Titans in the first five years of their careers? His breakout role, like Robbie’s, was one to remember—as the Nicholas Sparks heartthrob to end all Nicholas Sparks heartthrobs in The Notebook, forever immortalised as the best MTV Movie Award acceptance speech ever.
But it wasn’t long before Gosling was subverting his romantic lead status—first in Lars and the Real Girl (directed by I, Tonya director Craig Gillespie!) where he plays a shut-in whose relationship with a sex doll is humoured by friends and family, and then in Blue Valentine which shows the dissolution of a windswept romance that feels like it takes place just after the happily-ever-after ending of The Notebook. Gosling showed in his early years of fame how disinterested he was in sticking to the archetypal.
Next, Gosling pivoted hard to playing stoic, emotionally repressed characters with Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives), his Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance in The Place Beyond the Pines, and on a much larger scale with fellow Canadian Denis Villeneuve in Blade Runner 2049.
It’s a far cry from the oozing charisma we’re bound to see in Barbie, but Gosling wasn’t one to restrict himself—at the same time, he channelled every bit of charm he could into sexy, funny leading man roles with Crazy, Stupid, Love, The Big Short, and La La Land releasing concurrently to his solemn ones. He’s a man of multitudes—much like Barbie’s Ken, a character who has everything on paper but also harbours deep, complicated feelings of yearning and disaffection.
If we were to pick one Gosling movie as the blueprint for Ken? Undeniably it would be Shane Black’s The Nice Guys, a shaggy dog 70s noir-comedy starring Gosling as a 70s, single father private eye who has to team up with a no-nonsense Russell Crowe. Putting it light, Gosling gives the finest comedic performance of the 21st century, maybe of any century.
We may not be able to handle Robbie and Gosling’s powers combined in Barbie, but one thing’s for certain—they were destined to be on that screen together.
