Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is now playing in theaters nationwide, but one if its most emotional scenes might not have made it to the big screen had the filmmaker not held her ground against studio executives. In several interviews before the comedy’s theatrical release, Gerwig revealed that it was suggested she cut out the scene where Barbie (Margot Robbie) meets an elderly woman on a bench and tells her she’s beautiful.
“I love that scene so much,” Gerwig told Rolling Stone. “And the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She’s a legend. It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way — it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, ‘Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.’ And I said, ‘If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.’”
“That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie,” she continued. “The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced. There’s the more outrageous elements in the movie that people say, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe Mattel let you do this,’ or, ‘I can’t believe Warner Bros. let you do this.’ But to me, the part that I can’t believe that is still in the movie is this little cul-de-sac that doesn’t lead anywhere — except for, it’s the heart of the movie.”
The scene with the elderly woman has nothing to do with the plot of the movie, per say, but it’s vital to understanding Barbie’s perception of the real world after she leaves the perfect utopia that is Barbieland.
“The idea of a loving God who’s a mother, a grandmother — who looks at you and says, ‘Honey, you’re doing ok’ — is something I feel like I need and I wanted to give to other people,” Gerwig added to The New York Times about the importance of the scene, which she describes as a “transaction of grace.”
“If I cut that scene, I don’t know why I’m making this movie,” Gerwig added. “If I don’t have that scene, I don’t know what it is or what I’ve done.”
Executives also tried to get a scene from the movie removed where a teenager eviscerates Barbie to her face. A cover story from Time magazine on the making of “Barbie” revealed that Mattel president and COO Richard Dickson flew to the movie’s London set at one point during production to argue with Gerwig and Robbie about the scene because he believed it was off-brand for the company. The director and her star convinced Dickson to keep the scene in the film by performing it for him live on set.
“When you look on the page, the nuance isn’t there, the delivery isn’t there,” Robbie said.
“Barbie” is now playing in theaters nationwide from Warner Bros.
