Ryan Gosling played Ken in Barbie, and the actor opened up about his prep with help from his wife, actress Eva Mendes, and their daughters.
In a new interview with Variety, Ryan Gosling addressed his process of becoming Ken. The film premiered in the summer of 2023 during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, which prevented actors from talking about their craft. Barbie went on to become 2023’s highest-grossing film, with a total of $1.4 billion at the worldwide box office (via The Numbers). Greta Gerwig directed and wrote the film, which starred Margot Robbie as the titular character.
“In some way, everything I’ve done led to it,” Gosling says. “And I can’t believe I’m saying that. There were moments when I would do it where I’d think, ‘I haven’t felt like I’ve worked this hard since Blue Valentine.’ There were moments when I left Blue Valentine just completely emotionally spent, laying on the floor of the car on the ride home just done — empty.”
The actor went on to explain that “it was even harder to play Ken. And I thought, ‘How am I feeling that on this film?’” Initially, Gosling turned down the role. “There were actual reasons why I couldn’t do the film,” Gosling says. “Schedule things. Life things. And I would call months later to my agents or something and say, ‘Hey, who did they get to play Ken?’ And they would say, ‘Greta says it’s you.’”
Ryan Gosling went on to describe his Barbie prep: “After he first read the script for Barbie, he found one of his daughters’ Ken dolls in the dirt, naked. He and his partner, actress Eva Mendes, share two daughters, Esmeralda Amada, 9, and Amada Lee, 7.
After the film premiered, he found a Ken again. “He was wearing a tuxedo, albeit a sleeveless one,” Gosling says. “And I asked my daughters, ‘What happened?’ And they said, ‘Oh, he died of armpit arthritis. Ken’s dead!’ And I was like, ‘Well, at least he’s face up and wearing clothes.’ I feel like he was a little better off than where I found him.”
Gosling recalled that “so many times, I would come home and say, ‘What am I doing?’ And I would overthink it.” However, Eva Mendes supported him and told him to “just make it about Barbie,” he says. “And so every take became an opportunity to get Barbie to notice me.”
Gosling also shared that his two daughters helped him learn the dance moves for the “I’m Just Ken” video. His wife also ran lines with him.
Barbie is available for streaming on Max.
