Barbie: The Biggest Things Cut From The Movie
Contains spoilers for "Barbie"
"Barbie," as a movie, is a lot — in the very best way. In just under two hours, we watch as characters experience everything from disenfranchisement to dream ballet to existential crises. It might surprise you, then, that some things actually got cut from Greta Gerwig's latest film, some of which make sense and some of which are a total bummer.
We've written about some of the things that didn't make the cut or performances that didn't end up working out. For example, Bowen Yang, Dan Levy, and Ben Platt were all in the running to possibly play Kens alongside main Ken Ryan Gosling, but couldn't commit to spending three months in London; Jonathan Groff missed out on playing Allan for the same reason (but Michael Cera, who got the role, did an absolutely perfect job in the end). Emma Mackey from "Sex Education" appears in the finished film as Physicist Barbie, but a joke about her resemblance to star Margot Robbie was cut when it simply turned out that the two didn't look all that much alike with different hair colors (Robbie is blonde in the movie, and Mackey is brunette). So what did we miss out on in "Barbie" when all was said and done?
Two Greta Gerwig regulars couldn't make their cameos work
Perhaps the most heartbreaking thing cut from "Barbie" is a cameo from Saoirse Ronan and Timotheé Chalamet, both of whom have worked with Gerwig on her other two films. Ronan led both "Lady Bird" and "Little Women" as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson and Jo March, and Chalamet had a supporting role in "Lady Bird" as Kyle Scheible and a larger turn as Theodore "Laurie" Laurence. In both movies, the two play love interests, and they clearly work well together and with Gerwig, but according to the director, the timing just didn't work out.
As Gerwig told CinemaBlend, "Well, it was always going to have to be a sort of smaller thing because [Ronan] was actually producing at the time, which I am so proud of her for. And of course, it's brilliant. But it was going to be a specialty cameo." Ronan is producing a film called "The Outrun," in which she'll also star.
So what about Chalamet? "I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy, and both of them couldn't do it and I was so annoyed," Gerwig revealed. "But I love them so much." Chalamet has been working on a ton of projects lately, including "Dune 2" and "Wonka," so this isn't a complete shock — but it is totally disappointing that Gerwig's regulars couldn't pop up in "Barbie."
A weird kiss between Ken and Barbie was cut
A constant throughline throughout "Barbie" is that Ken is hopelessly in love with Barbie, who just doesn't fully reciprocate his feelings. Sure, they're — as Ken puts it — "boyfriend-girlfriend," but Barbie never wants Ken to be at her house, because it's always girls' night. Beyond that, they don't even kiss; Ken leans in and kisses the air near Barbie's face, and then tells her how wonderful the non-kiss was before asking if he can spend the night. (He's not sure what they would even do if he did, though.)
During an interview alongside Robbie with People, Gosling said that the actors and creatives working on "Barbie" tried to figure out how Ken and Barbie would even successfully kiss, but it was just... way too weird. "It was so funny trying to figure out what their idea of kissing might be," Gosling said. "I'm so glad all of that got cut out." The scenes between Barbie and Ken are funny enough, so missing out on a really weird kiss seems fine.
Was there a steamy scene between Ken and Weird Barbie?
Losing an appearance by Saoirse Ronan and Timotheé Chalamet is one thing; losing a scene between Ken and Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) is another matter altogether. Mashable revealed that there's a behind-the-scenes photo of Gerwig in action and sitting in the director's chair, laughing as Weird Barbie sits "in" the Barbie Land pool (it's plastic, not water) while cradling Ken's head in her lap. So what happened to this scene, exactly?
Weird Barbie even directly tells Robbie's Barbie that she's got a thing for Ken, saying she'd love to see whatever "nude blob he's packing under those jeans." McKinnon is one of the funniest actors around, and she and Gosling have worked together several times during her tenure on "Saturday Night Live," most memorably the time when she got him to break during one of her now-infamous "alien abduction" sketches. A bizarre romance between Ken and Weird Barbie could have been a delightful little aside during "Barbie," especially when you consider that our main Barbie really doesn't have any interest in him. Perhaps, if Ken and Weird Barbie had shared a moment together, he could have finally learned whatever Barbies and Kens do during sleepovers.
"Barbie" is in theaters now.