Ryan Gosling names the hardest role of his career: “It was like a high-wire act”
Ryan Gosling has hopped between several worlds across his long and fruitful career. After capturing worldwide attention as a heartthrob in romance movies like The Notebook and Crazy, Stupid, Love, the Canadian moved into more ‘serious’ films with the likes of La La Land, The Ides of March, and Drive. Now, he finds himself with a foot in both camps, with one film in particular responsible for bringing him back to the sillier side.
As Ken, the well-sculpted but dim-witted love interest of the titular character in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Gosling achieved far more than he had any right to while playing a toy. He was easily the highlight of the film, leaving audiences in stitches with his ultra-himbo attitude and misguided love for the patriarchy. He was nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the Oscars and stole the show there too, giving a thunderous live rendition of the song ‘I’m Just Ken’.
“It was like a high-wire act,” Gosling described the process of playing Ken to Variety. “In tiny shorts and no shirt – with no net.” The star was hesitant to take the role on at first, partly because he had no idea how to approach the role and partly because he didn’t want to be the butt of anyone’s jokes. “I wanted to make sure if I was going to do it – I was like, ‘I can’t mess this up. I can’t be the guy that messed up the Barbie movie.’ So if I’m going to do it, I have to do more than I know that I’m even capable of.”
Gosling described the character as, “the hardest role I’ve ever had to play,” which seems ridiculous at first glance. However, Ken’s whole point is that he’s empty. Mattel designed him as nothing more than a male counterpart to their wildly successful fashion doll, an origin that forms a large part of his character in the film. Prior to 2023, the only major appearance of Ken in a movie was when Michael Keaton voiced the character in Toy Story 3. Gosling had very little to work with – a terrifying prospect for any actor.
In the end, he needn’t have worried, as Barbie turned out to be a smash hit. With a gross of over $1.4billion, it finished 2023 as the year’s most financially successful film, as well as the first female-led movie in history to take over $1billion. Alongside Gosling’s nomination, the film itself was up for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, one of eight total nominations it received.
It transpired that Gosling was absolutely perfect for the role of Ken, as his co-star Margot Robbie explained. “We couldn’t imagine anyone else being able to do all the things he needed to and also have the humility to be Ken in a Barbie movie,” said the Australian star, who played the film’s title character. “I don’t know if a lot of big male movie stars would do a film with a female director where their character isn’t the title of the film. We both [Robbie and Gerwig] sensed he’s not that kind of guy.”
Barbie was never guaranteed to be a success, but even if the film itself had flopped, chances are everyone would have still been blown away by Gosling’s unlikely career highlight as the man whose job is ‘beach’.
