I am beyond excited for Barbie/Oppenheimer day—or, as our Britt Hayes called it, Boppenheimer Day. The shared release date brings together two of my favorite things in the world together and just feels like a gift to the Barbie girls and Nolan bros. (I am a Nolan bro.) So, the lead up to both of these movies has just made me even more excited about these two films, and in a profile for Vogue, we got the most information about Barbie yet, including how the relationship between Barbie and Ken came to be.
Barbie and Ken’s relationship is fully a product of figureheads at Mattel not wanting Barbie to be single, but still, they were a staple throughout their relationship together (Barbie dumped him in 2004). In Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Margot Robbie’s Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Ken are very much together.
To help build their Barbie and Ken relationship, Robbie would apparently send gifts to Gosling from Barbie to Ken. “She left a pink present with a pink bow, from Barbie to Ken, every day while we were filming. They were all beach-related. Like puka shells, or a sign that says ‘Pray for surf.’ Because Ken’s job is just beach. I’ve never quite figured out what that means. But I felt like she was trying to help Ken understand, through these gifts that she was giving.”
The kind method acting we love
I get up on a soapbox often about what is and is not method acting. Call it my theatre degree rearing its ugly head, but I just can’t sit back and let the complicated topic fall by the wayside. So, the thing that Robbie did with Gosling? This is a sort of acting technique but could also be considered a Meisner move, depending on what actor you are talking to.
But with how actors like Jared Leto have made headlines by sending horrific “gifts” to cast members in character as the Joker, this kind of story is actually really cute. When we hear about these “method acting” stories, it’s usually because the behavior was actually pretty out of line, so it’s fun to see it in the form of something that’s actually sweet for once.
In the new trailer for Barbie, we saw a bit more of their dynamic together onscreen, and I hope we get to hear more cute stories about Robbie sending Gosling beach-themed gifts because if we’re going to highlight all the bad “method”-ish things, we should bring light to this, too.
I do think that I would actually just combust right on the spot if I ever got a gift from Margot Robbie in general, but especially if I got one from her that said “From Barbie.” That sounds like the absolute best thing to happen to me as a person.
(featured image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
