Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Ken in Barbie has gotten good feedback, but the actor believes the character was not a “piece of cake” to play.
In an interview with W Magazine, the La La Land actor revealed what happened to him when he first saw Greta Gerwig’s screenplay.
“It was the title page of the script, which said ‘Barbie and Ken,’ but ‘and Ken’ was scratched out,” he claimed.
Following that, the Blade Runner star was faced with the enormous task of portraying a character who had no prior material.
“And the next impression was, this is the hardest part I’ll ever play. How do you approach playing a 70-year-old crotchless doll? There’s no research you can do for that,” he said.
“There’s no one you can shadow, no documentaries you can watch, no books written about Ken. You’re on your own,” he says.
Meanwhile, Ryan previously dismissed criticisms about Ken that were primarily based on his age, claiming that he was too old to be Barbie’s companion.
“It is funny, this kind of clutching-your-pearls idea of, like, #notmyken. Like you ever thought about Ken before this?” He told GQ about it.
“And everyone was fine with that, for him to have a job that is nothing. But suddenly, it’s like, ‘No, we’ve cared about Ken this whole time,” the Notebook star concluded.
“No, you didn’t,” he added. You never did. You never cared. Barbie never fucked with Ken. That’s the point.”