Here’s the first look at Ryan Gosling as Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie
Gosling is giving you a night call... on a pink plastic phone
Aux News Barbie
A month and a half after unveiling a first image of Margot Robbie in the forthcoming Barbie movie, Warner Bros. has finally shared Ryan Gosling’s look as Ken. Posing in front of what is presumably a version of Barbie’s Dream House, the Blade Runner 2049 star sports bleached-blond hair and a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off, along with Ken-branded boxers for some reason.
While Barbie’s styling was a nod towards the doll’s roots in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Ken’s light-wash double denim conveys a very different kind of retro look. (Well, Ryan Gosling is Canadian, after all.)
Similarly to the first glimpse of Barbie’s convertible, the Dream House appears to be a scaled-up version of its toy counterpart and fully made out of plastic, rather than a realistic version rendered in pink. The story is said to have a meta element, with Will Ferrell playing the CEO of a Mattel-like company.
Gossip surrounding the secretive project suggests that it will feature a variety of dolls, with Issa Rae and Hari Nef portraying more Barbies and Simu Liu and Ncuti Gatwa as additional Kens. In a recent appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Liu backed up this rumor, recounting how he was told, “Dolls don’t have leg hair, you’re going to have to get rid of this” and showing off a waxed shin to the camera.
Gosling does have a noticeable 5 o’clock shadow, so apparently the rules are different for facial hair. Hey, it’s not like doll bodies are particularly logical anyways!
Barbie is being directed by Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with her longtime collaborator and partner Noah Baumbach. The stacked cast also includes Michael Cera, America Ferrera, Rhea Perlman, Alexandra Shipp, Kate McKinnon, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Emerald Fennell. Saoirse Ronan, Nicola Coughlan, and Dua Lipa are rumored to appear.
Barbie is set to hit theaters in July 2023. Before then, Gosling will be seen in Netflix’s The Gray Man this summer, his first film since 2018's First Man.
39 Comments
If you had told me even a year or two ago that I would someday be unironically excited about a live action Barbie movie, I would have had my doubts. As dark as this timeline is, there are still some bright surprises left.
Me too. The idea of a Barbie movie seems completely uninteresting to me, but that cast, along with the Gerwig/Baumbach team certainly is intriguing.
I really hope it’s just incomprehensibly batshit insane instead of tongue in cheek snarky like Zoolander or something.
Exactly. True humor needs to have a fondness for a subject (even if it is willing to criticize parts of it that are problematic or inconsistent). Just plain snark isn’t very funny.
Judging by Gosling’s look up there, it’s going to be sourly and spitefully satirical of its subject.
The caliber of people involved makes it all sound like some massive joke, or a movie within a movie from Get Shorty or The Player. I mean this is like a My Little Pony movie.
the image of Ryan Gosling as Ken is the actor Robert Conrad in the G. Gordon Liddy biopic in a photograph from one of his late nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties California surfing movies think Ann Margaret pale blue capri slacks purple silk shirt tied at the waist red hair tied back with a pale blue silk Alice band waitress at a fifties themed car hop restaurant on the Pacific Coast Highway about nineteen Robert De Niro prison buff Jackie Brown Cape Fear Waingro the psychotic woman killer in the movie Heat Los Angeles Police Department police officer serial killer everyone in the Department fucking knows you covet what you see everyday on the way to your police station
Oh shit, nearly word for word what I came here to say
According to an interview with Liu, his junior agent pushed really hard for him to join the cast, saying the Barbie script was the best script he had read that year.
Hey, if it’s anything like Barbie: Life In the Dreamhouse (yes, I am just as shocked as you are that a real Barbie series was legitimately funny), then this movie should be a slam dunk.
That is just one of those shows that transcends what its supposed to be about and ends up being incredibly good*. Like a really really good comedy show.And most people (without kids of the right age/gender) have never even heard of it .(* I’d add Mystery Incorporated to that as well, which is yes, a Scooby Doo show, but one that turned into a really good X files/Supernatural/Twin Peaks(!) show. With Harlan Ellison as a side character! Also maybe that one season of Looney Tunes with Kristin Wigg and Fred Armisen )
Orange Cassidy should sue for gimmick infringement
He would if could find the energy which…whatever.
Barbie and the mean streets.
Okay but lets see him with his pants off to see how “authentic” he really is
OH, GIVE OVER, WILL YOU?
so its just his Breaker High character all grown up?
If this were about anything other than Barbie and Ken. All of this nostalgia is starting to look like an obsession.
Yes. It’s also about the collapse of American culture.
The thing is, people have been claiming the imminent collapse of American/Western culture for over a century. It’s getting to be a tired trope at this point.
Then you should switch to the collapse of American democracy. That one’s fresh and has more zing to it.
No, that’s pretty stale as well. People were claiming that the scandals and open bribery of Warren Harding in the 1920s, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the combination of Watergate/loss in Vietnam/OPEC crisis in the 1970s meant that the US was likely to either become a dictatorship or break up into smaller countries.
Okay, yeah. stay tuned. You don’t happen to have a television or access to the Internet, do you?
It’s just that like so many things I’ve seen it all before even in my own lifetime. I’m just old enough (early GenX) to remember the late 1970s with its “America is done” and the 1980s with “Japan will rule the world” viewpoints, and so when I see current people espousing “America is done” or “China will rule the world” I have enough perspective to see why it might not be so. I think the people who think the sky is falling are mostly younger people who can only remember back to the 1990s and the brief time when America faced few challenges and so are freaked out when there are major politcal scandals that don’t involve blow jobs or when other countries seem to be successful.
No Cock RingGrade: D-
Where in that photo would you see a cock ring?
“Before then, Gosling will be seen in Netflix’s The Gray Man this summer, his first film since 2018’s First Man.”That’s a looong break.
Looks like when Covid hit he had three films in preproduction; guessing they were delayed if not outright scrapped. Gray Man didn’t start production ‘til 2021 and Barbie was this year.
Did Ryan have his genitals removed for this part or was he already dickless?The Method can be a difficult process.
Sadly, William Atherton was both too old and too ginger for the part of Ken.
That guy!.
Has no dick!
Could have done some real societal good casting Jared Leto in this.
Don’t care about the naysayers, I’m very excited for this. I love Barbie (unironically) and this looks insane in the best way. Having “Ken” on his undies seems very appropriate because the toys often have stupid little details like that. True to life (in plastic)!
Shoulda been Michael Keaton.
He looks, um, interesting…
Doesn’t Ken have brownish hair? I guess this does make Gosling look more like a toy (girltoy, with those abs).
While the aesthetic looks fun, it’s so hard to imagine a story worth caring about. Apart from the dolls, there’s no shared “Barbie” experience or story, they’re neither despised or adored as characters, they’re just pieces of plastic whose names we happen to know. The movie will have to answer the question, “Who gives a shit?” and while maybe they’ll do just that, it’s hard to see how.
Yeah but the flipside is that gives Gerwig et al. a nearly blank slate to do something unexpected. Like a quest to get Ken a penis.