Michael Cera emailed Greta Gerwig to land ‘Barbie’ role
Michael Cera has quickly become a fan favourite as the unexpected choice to play Allan, the introverted, fleeting companion to the better-known Ken, in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
However, Cera’s involvement in the film almost didn’t happen. The actor disclosed, “It was a kind of very last-minute casting. My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me, and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie. It’s the Barbie movie.”
Speaking to GQ, Cera explained how the conversation between him and his manager went down: “‘Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months of something, so I told them you probably wouldn’t want to do it because you probably don’t want to go to London.'” Cera, however, was more than keen: “How can I not do it? I need to do it!”
“I somehow got Greta’s email address,” Cera continued. “I think through a common friend of ours, and I emailed her like, ‘Can I be in it? Can I do that part?’ And she was like, ‘Let’s get on a Zoom right now. Here’s a Zoom link, I’ll be on there for the next hour.’ So she was just hanging out on the Zoom, like, ‘Click the link whenever you’re ready.’ And then we talked about it, and it just all happened really fast from there.”
Regarding the type of character he plays, Cera confirmed that: “Allan is a sad figure. He’s just a person that doesn’t really have any place in the world.” Allan, an actual doll rolled out as a companion to Ken, was discontinued by Mattel.
“It just wasn’t selling,” Cera explained of the reasoning behind the end of the Allan doll. “The world just didn’t need for Ken to have a friend… Barbie is good; we can get a lot more Barbies in here, and friends of hers. But we’ve got Ken, and we don’t need to go deeper in that direction. So Allan fell by the wayside a little bit.”
In keeping with Allan’s timid and shy nature, it was recently revealed that Cera was excluded from the Barbie cast’s WhatsApp chat group. According to the actor, his phone was too old to support the app.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.