Can you feel the K-energy?
Following the success of the film “Barbie” (2023), Greta Gerwig recently remained tight-lipped about the possibility of a Ken film starring Ryan Gosling.
In an interview on Sunday, “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi asked Gerwig if “there ever was a Ken movie.” Gerwig said she could not comment on that, but did not completely rule it out.
“I mean, the truth is, you know – I guess we’ll see,” the director said with a smile.
Gerwig found her perfect Ken early on in the creation of “Barbie.”
The 41-year-old and her partner, filmmaker Noah Baumbach, said they always had Gosling in mind for the role of Ken when writing the script.
The couple even wrote the 43-year-old actor’s full name next to Ken’s lines in the first draft.
In the final version, Gerwig and Baumbach had so many ideas for Ken that they couldn’t fit them all into the script.
An earlier version of the script applied the “Ken Effect” in the real world and included a scene in which Gosling played himself.
“We had way too much material for Ken. We wrote and wrote and wrote,” Gerwig admitted, before Baumbach warned her “not to give it away.”
For now, the duo is still basking in the global phenomenon of the “Barbie” movie, which was the highest-grossing film of 2023, grossing more than a billion dollars worldwide.
However, Baumbach didn’t know what he was getting into when Gerwig brought him on board.
“I couldn’t even imagine it,” he recalled. “And Greta wrote these pages … and I thought, ‘I can write this Barbie movie. I completely understand what it’s about.'”
“Noah immediately understood what I was doing and said, ‘You know, this is exciting and there’s a movie in here,'” Gerwig enthused.
From then on, the magic began to work for the author duo.
“Once we have something that feels more like a script, we start reading it out loud,” Gerwig said. “We check the language itself so we can hear if a joke is repeated or a rhythm is off.”
Meanwhile, Gosling talks fondly about his time as Ken alongside Margot Robbie as Barbie.
When the actor was nominated for a Golden Globe, he reacted extremely enthusiastically.
“It’s an honor to have your work recognized, but for Ken, this is the first time he’s ever been recognized for anything!” Gosling said at the time. “And when it’s for supporting Barbie, there’s no greater honor. Thanks to the Golden Globes, Ken, whose job is definitely not ‘surfing,’ has been on a huge wave of emotion since hearing the news.”
And what was his first impression in the role of Barbie’s beloved lover?
“On the cover of the script it said ‘Barbie and Ken,’ but ‘and Ken’ was crossed out,” he said in an interview with W Magazine in January. “And the next thing I knew, this is the hardest role I’ll ever play. How do you approach the role of a 70-year-old doll with no crotch? You can’t do any research for that. There’s no one to accompany you, no documentaries to watch, no books written about Ken. You’re on your own.”
