The Barbie movie was already one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year, thanks to its Barbie, Margot Robbie, its Ken, Ryan Gosling, and its director, Greta Gerwig. But in posters released today, a long-standing rumour was confirmed, one that only heightens the levels of excitement (and, thankfully, camp): there will be – at least – nine Barbies other than Robbie in the film.
The new Barbie squad is made up of a slew of Hollywood A-listers, including Dua Lipa, who will make her acting debut as a Barbie mermaid, Emma Mackey from Sex Education (Robbie’s industry doppelganger) as a Barbie who has a Nobel prize in physics, Issa Rae as President (perfect) and Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan as a diplomat.
Meanwhile, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa and Scott Evans are playing variations on Ken, alongside Gosling. In each of the just released posters showing the different characters in the film, the Barbies have their own professions (as noted above), whereas the Kens? They’re simply Kens.
To top it off, we also get Helen Mirren as the narrator, Will Ferrell as a Mattel CEO (whose poster says “Please call me mother”), Michael Cera as Allan, as well as America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt as humans. In another surprise, the second trailer dropped today too.
The clip shows Robbie living it up in her Barbie World, saying hi to her friends, the other Barbies and the Kens, driving in her convertible and walking along the beach. There’s a hilarious bit with Gosling when he asks to “stay over” and another funny moment when the Kens almost get into a fight. It’s cheeky and sets the tone for a hilarious movie to come.
Before this big day of news, the plot of the movie has been kept tightly under wraps, aside from some very iconic paparazzi photos of Robbie and Gosling rollerblading in neon Barbie costumes, which Robbie says “mortified” the duo. Gerwig also said the project could be a potential “career-ruiner” and Robbie teased that things won’t be as you’d expect.
“I can’t tell you how mortified we were, by the way,” Robbie told Jimmy Fallon of the viral images from the set on Venice Beach. “We look like we’re like laughing and having fun, but we’re dying on the inside. Dying. I was like, this is the most humiliating moment of my life.”
“I knew that we had some exteriors to shoot in L.A. I knew once you were doing exteriors, you’re gonna get papped,” she continued. “There’s probably going to be a little crowd of people who are going to take notice because, you know, we stand out a little bit in those outfits. So I knew there was going to be a little bit of attention, and probably some photos would get out there, but not like it did.”
While we await the July 21st release date, see the entire cast (we think) of the upcoming Barbie film, below.
