Margot Robbie Talks About the Lines in BARBIE They Had to Defend and Fought to Keep In
Barbie was a hit phenomenon that broke all sorts of box office records, and gave fans a fun movie-going experience unlike anything we had seen in the past few years. The movie was original, funny, and thoughtful, and though we know there were edited scenes and story changes along the way in the creation of the movie, star Margot Robbie recently talked about a couple of the lines in the film that she and director Greta Gerwig had to fight to keep in.
During the annual Producers Guild of America breakfast, attended by THR, Robbie was asked about any creative guardrails put in place by toy company Mattel over what Barbie could or could not say and do in the Warner Bros. feature. She started by recalling questions executives had over the script, including what it meant when Ryan Gosling and Simu Liu’s versions of Ken say they are going to “beach each other off.”
Robbie responded, “’When they beach each other off, what does that mean?’ We were like, ‘What do you think that means?’” Robbie said to laughs from the crowd, before touching on the final line of the movie, “I’m here to see my gynecologist.”
Robbie continued: “Or it could be something like ending the movie on the gynecologist line, which we were fighting for, for days before we picture-locked. That was still a fight. It was just picking the hills to die on, I suppose, but always having a conversation no matter what, and being in it together.”
Robbie said that Mattel had to sign off on the treatment but not the script of the film, which was a challenge because screenwriters Gerwig and Noah Baumbach did not typically write treatments and were hesitant to do so at first. She also noted that, in the end, everyone had the same goal in mind. Said Robbie, “It was never about, ‘We have to fight Mattel. We have to fight Warner Bros.’ We all are in this together and want to make a great film.”
It was a smart move letting Gerwig and her writing partner Noah Baumbach have their way when it came to this movie’s script. They had a vision, and it clearly paid off.
Barbie is currently available to stream on Max.