Greta Gerwig has recently opened up about her inspiration behind writing Ken character for the Barbie movie.
“I’ve never seen The Bachelor, but Ryan Gosling — when we started talking about Ken, he said, ‘Oh, the Kens remind me of how the contestants on The Bachelorette are when the woman isn’t around,” said the director while speaking on Smartless podcast on July 31.
The Lady Bird creator continued, “They don’t know what to do with themselves. They’re doing, like, push-ups and they kind of are competitive with each other and if one guy wears glasses and then another guy wears glasses, he’s like, no you took my thing, I’m the guy with glasses.’”
Gerwig revealed that Gosling’s “vision” for Ken made him the potential candidate for the movie.
“We knew we were writing the part of Barbie for Margot Robbie, so in writing we cast Ryan. We wrote his name into the script. It was the thing that I was like, ‘I know.' And then when we handed them the script the studio was like, ‘Oh that’s so wonderful that you know Ryan.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know Ryan. I’ve never met Ryan,’” recalled the 39-year-old.
The Little Women director added, “But you know those actors, whether they do comedy or not, they have funny rhythms in them? You can sort of feel that they know what’s funny? I always felt that about him.”
Gerwig explained she loved Gosling’s details about The Bachelor franchise was because she’s also a big reality TV fan particularly dating shows.
“I love Love Is Blind. I love it so much. I love people falling in love on television and in their hearts. It just makes me so happy,” confessed the director.
Meanwhile, Barbie, which was released on July 21, became a blockbuster hit on opening weekend with $162 million.