While Greta Gerwig reportedly had to pursue Ryan Gosling for a full year before he signed on to feel the Ken-ergy in Barbie, the film’s casting directors just revealed that a whole roster of other A-listers also applied to Beach.
Bowen Yang, Dan Levy, and Ben Platt (who went on to star in Barbenheimer’s small-but-mighty cousin Theater Camp) were all up for secondary Kens—roles that eventually went to Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and more—but had to turn them down due to logistical concerns. Per the casting directors, Lucy Bevan and Allison Jones, prospective actors had to spend three months in London (where much of the movie was filmed) due to COVID restrictions, which put the above out of the running, according to Vanity Fair.
Still, “they were, I’m not kidding, really bummed they couldn’t do it,” according to Jones.
Yang, Levy, and Platt were not competing for any particular Ken, per se. While each of the many Barbies in the film has her own specific identity—i.e. President Barbie, Doctor Barbie etc.—the Kens are all just… Ken. Still, Gerwig wanted to imbue each with his own personality—something she often gleaned from speaking to the actors before sharing the script. “She really wanted to get to know them as people. That was very important to her,” said Bevan.
She continued: “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.” Enjoy it, in this case, means being silly and goofy, not Zooming in shirtless for an audition, which apparently happened somewhat frequently. “We were like, ‘No, no, it’s not about that. You don’t have to do that,’” said Bevan. (No word on whether any of the official Kens were a part of this special group.)
Another actor who was apparently heartbroken to turn down a part in the film was Jonathan Groff, who almost played runaway audience favorite Allan (a part that eventually went to Michael Cera). “Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I can’t do Allan,’” said Jones.
