Barbie Casting Directors Reveal List Of Names Who Were Approached To Play Kens Alongside Ryan Gosling But Had To Turn Them Down(Photo Credit –Imdb)
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Barbie by Greta Gerwig starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the lead, has been creating a lot of buzz for multiple reasons, one being its clash with Oppenheimer at the theatres. Keeping that aside for a moment, as people know and have seen, the film has multiple actors and actresses playing Barbie and Ken and the casting directors, Allison Jones and Lucy Bevan, revealed the name of the actors besides Ryan, who reluctantly had to forfeit from the film because of filming restrictions.
The film has been getting a fairly good response at the box office, and the online tag of Barbenheimer proved to be in the film’s favour. Names of actors like Ben Platt, Dan Levy and Bowen Yang are now being revealed who were reportedly forced to turn down the roles.
The casting directors of Barbie, Allison Jones and Lucy Bevan, revealed that the casting of the film started during the pandemic in the initial days of Covid-19 lockdowns. Talking about that, Jones and Bevan in an interview with Vanity Fair, said that while shooting for the film, they had to spend three months in London, but sadly, Dan Levy, Ben Platt and Bowen Yang could not do it because of the filming restrictions.
They revealed that the actors were not very about their decision but nothing could have been done at that moment. Jones quoted, “They were, I’m not kidding, really bummed they couldn’t do it.”
The roles of Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie ultimately went to Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa and John Cena.
Jones also revealed that the role played by Michael Cera, that is of Allan, almost went to Jonathan Groff, known for his stint in Glee. She said, “Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I can’t do Allan.” Simu Liu, who luckily made it to Barbie as one of the Kens, was very eager for the role; as Allison shared, “Simu Liu was dying to be a Ken; God bless him.”
Further speaking about all the Kens in the Barbie, Bevan said, “They were definitely really different, but they had to feel like a cohesive group. You wanted to cast people who were really going to get on and be great and enjoy it.”
The film was released in the theatres on July 21st, and Barbie has been receiving a lot of love from audiences worldwide.
