Ryan Gosling's Ken Casting Was Met With Confusion From His Real Life Daughters
For some people, it seems that Ryan Gosling wasn't Kenough.
Gosling is the father of two children, currently seven and eight years old. They are the prime age for Barbie dolls, and, according to Gosling, have constructed an elaborate universe of their own wherein Barbies, Kens, and their many variants can co-exist. Gosling was familiar with his daughters' self-created myths and was used to finding Barbie dolls underfoot in his home. When Greta Gerwig approached Gosling about the possibility of playing Ken in her "Barbie" movie, Gosling sought a Ken doll from his daughters' collection. Famously, he found a Ken outdoors in his garden, laying face-down in the dirt, neglected for Lord knows how long. The doll was next to a mashed lemon. He took a picture of the Ken doll and texted it to Gerwig, saying "I shall be your Ken, for this story must be told."
While Gosling was to become the live-action personification of one of his daughters' favorite toys, it soon became clear to him that he was to fulfill the least necessary part of his daughters' Barbie lore. Indeed, that was also a major element of Gerwig's screenplay (co-written with Noah Baumbach). Ken, in the narrative of "Barbie," is a secondary entity, a needy creature that only exists when Barbie is looking at him. Gosling was keen to fill a void that, well, actually remains kind of a void. Ken, Gosling's daughters confirmed, was a pusillanimous, nugatory figure. When they heard their dad was going to play a part like that, they became baffled.
During a pre-strikes interview with the New York Times, Gosling shared a few details of his daughters' play life, and how they didn't really care that he was playing Ken.
Lacking in Kenergy
One of the gags in Gerwig's "Barbie" is that Ken doesn't really have a job. When pondering the question, he finds that "My job is beach." Not being a lifeguard, mind you, but merely "beach." That funny line of dialogue is, it seems, more authentic than one might realize. It appears that Gosling's own daughters referred to their Barbie retinue in a similar fashion. When asked what his daughters' reaction was to their dad playing Ken, Gosling shared some of the vital details, saying:
"They were confused. Why Ken? They don't even call him Ken. One of them is named Darrell. And Darrell works at a grocery store. One of the Barbies' names is Gym Class. And Gym Class met Darrell at the grocery store, but Gym Class ... she's focusing on herself right now."
Gym Class, it seems, was the heroine of the imaginary soap opera in Gosling's household. Darrell wasn't even a supporting character. For his daughters, Ken was about as important to Barbie as Darrell was to Gym Class, which is to say, not at all. Incidentally, Mattel never released a Barbie toy named Darrell. Barbie has an Australian ex-boyfriend named Blaine, Ken has a friend named Allan, and Barbie's sister Skipper dates a boy named Scott and is friends with Kevin ... or is it the other way around? Regardless, there is no Darrell, and he's not important anyway. Gosling noted that Darrell/Ken is "such a nonpresence in their world. They were like 'What is there to play? Is there meat on that bone?'"
Gosling managed to create a Ken that was confident, simple, and ultimately kind of pathetic and easily manipulated, but still beloved at the end of the day. Gosling wasn't Kenough for his daughters, but he was for Gerwig's movie.