This Barbie is still shocked Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s script was greenlit.
After a tumultuous journey to bring a live-action “Barbie” adaptation to the big screen, lead star and producer Margot Robbie revealed that the script co-written by director Gerwig was almost too good to be true.
“The first time I read the ‘Barbie’ script, my reaction was, ‘Ah! This is so good. What a shame it will never see the light of day,’” Robbie told BAFTA, “‘because they are never going to let us make this movie.’ But they did.”
As for any details on what is in that mysterious “Barbie” script, Robbie coyly said, “Can’t tell ya!”
The trailer for “Barbie,” co-starring Ryan Gosling, included a direct homage to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and multiple double entendre spoofs like wordplay on a beach fight.
Robbie’s co-star Simu Liu teased that the film is “crazy” and the script was one of the best his agent has ever read.
“He literally said this verbatim,” Liu recalled. “He was like, ‘If I could stake my career on any one script, it’s the ‘Barbie’ script. I really think you should do it.’”
Writer-director Gerwig opened up about penning the film after producer Robbie reached out to her in 2020.
“I think there’s something about starting from that place where it’s like, ‘Well, anything is possible!’ It felt like vertigo starting to write it,” Gerwig said during an episode of Dua Lipa’s “At Your Service” podcast. “Like, where do you even begin? What would be the story?”
Gerwig continued, “I think it was that feeling I had that it would be really interesting terror. Usually, that’s where the best stuff is. When you’re like, ‘I am terrified of that.’ Anything where you’re like, ‘This could be a career-ender,’ then you’re like, ‘OK, I probably should do it.’”
Gerwig added that her real-life partner and “Barbie” co-writer Baumbach was also in the mix to potentially direct.
“Initially, I didn’t know I was going to direct it,” she said. “And then it was at a certain point while we were writing it that I realized I really wanted to direct it because I thought it was so great. I think the moment I knew I wanted to direct it was when Noah said to me, ‘Are you sure you want to direct this?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, are you interested in directing it? No, no, this one’s mine.’”
Baumbach cited that collaborating together on “White Noise” also influenced the tone of the “Barbie” script.
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