I Went To The ‘Barbie’ Event In Sydney And Here’s Everything I Learned

I’m not lying when I say think Barbie will be the best film of 2023, because everything about it screams absolute slay. Our fave Aussie Margot Robbie has produced the movie, and also stars as the main character Stereotypical Barbie. 

Then, we’ve got director and writer Greta Gerwig’s signature stamp of humour, along with a stacked cast. I’m talking Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu, and basically a thousand other Hollywood stars. 

Punkee was lucky enough to be invited to a lush Barbie event at the iconic Bondi Icebergs, to discover all things pink. To kick off the Australian Barbie press tour, Greta and the cast spilled some interesting deets about the film. 

@itspunkee Barbie is everything ? #barbiemovie #margotrobbie #bondi #sydney #barbie ♬ Dance The Night (From Barbie The Album) – Dua Lipa

Without further ado, here’s everything I learned about the Barbie movie from Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, Issa Rae and America Ferrera: 

Editor’s note: The below interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

On what the first day of filming felt like: 

Margot: The first day was particularly exciting after seeing pieces come together for many, many years. I’d been watching them hand-make and paint the sets and backdrops, as well as watching our fellow cast come in for costume fittings. I kept seeing what the world would look like in fragmented pieces, and on day one seeing it all come together in its entirety just blew me away. We all played music and danced on set, it set the tone for the rest of filming.

On the film that walked so Barbie could run: 

Margot: Obviously I want the movie to do well, because we all worked so hard and we love it so much. But I think it’s also important when a movie like this does do well. If Wonder Woman hadn’t achieved so much, I don’t know if people would have given us the budget to make Barbie. 

I remember when they were trying to come up with comparisons for this movie. There’s not that many and it’s important to have them as it makes a difference on the business side of things, and have the proof in the pudding that similar films have made money in the past. Hopefully Barbie can be an extra stepping stone for the next thing.

On their history with Barbie dolls: 

America: I didn’t grow up playing with Barbies. I didn’t feel represented in the world of Barbie. But Greta and Noah Baumbach’s brilliance created a world that made it relevant to me. It is really exciting to get to be a part of a moment that is expanding such a dominant, influential female iconic character in our global culture, to include more of us and also to include people with perspectives that aren’t necessarily positive and kind toward the very long legacy in history that Barbie has.

I never imagined myself in a Barbie world and a Barbie movie, but I opened the script and I was laughing on page one, and then I was crying, and then I was laughing and crying and I had so many feelings. 

Greta: I grew up with a mum who didn’t like love Barbie, which only made me more interested in Barbie. I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbie so I got a lot of Barbies like Kate McKinnon’s version – they didn’t have hair, their clothes were all backwards. So that Barbie is very close to my heart. 

Issa: When I think about my relationship with Barbie, it was my mom and aunt who bought Barbies for me. And they were just like, ‘But you have to have black Barbies’. And I’m like, ‘Okay, then buy me some, I’m not in charge of this’. But I recognise now how important it was for them to play with dolls who look like them, and for me to play with dolls who look like them because they didn’t have that opportunity.

On why Margot wanted to make the Barbie movie: 

Margot: I was aware that the Barbie IP was floating around, it had been up and running but hadn’t come to full fruition. We’d been keeping tabs on the property and when there seemed like there was an opening, we jumped at the opportunity. We sat down with the Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz five years ago and pitched what we wanted to do with a Barbie movie. I knew I wanted to do it with Greta Gerwig, she was the dream writer and director for it. I didn’t know if she was gonna say yes to it, but she was top of the list. The reason we went after the property is that it seemed like a very big and exciting and scary opportunity. People have very strong feelings about Barbie in a lot of cases, so it felt really exciting and it seemed like we could do something special with it.

On how Issa Rae felt about being President Barbie and what her campaign song would be: 

Issa: Greta approached me and told me that she envisioned a world a Barbie world where I was President, and I was super flattered by that and also questioned her taste in political leaders. But it’s a world that is perfect and beautiful. And seeing her brilliant writing and the cast attached, it was a no-brainer for me. 

I’m just gonna be stereotypical black Barbie and say that I love the Nicki Minaj Ice Spice song. I watched the first cut at Margot’s house and at the end, I was just thrilled over the end credits. I said, ‘Y’all got Nicki, y’all got Ice Spice, this is amazing!’. Margot was like, ‘It’s not official yet’, and I was thinking, ‘Y’all better make it official because the Barbs are gonna come for y’all in every way’. But that for sure is her campaign song. 

On the influence that Mattel had on the movie: 

Greta: When we signed on to write it and I went to the Mattel headquarters, they opened up all the archives and took me through everything from 1959 until now. Their designers and the people who work there were really fun to talk to and really interesting. But, if there were rules, I think we broke all of them. That was part of the fun of it. 

On if Margot’s stereotypical Barbie character is a ‘dumb blonde’: 

Margot: I definitely didn’t want to portray Barbie as being vapid in any way. The thing about our how our story is constructed is that Barbie can be anything. Barbie can be president, Barbie can be a Nobel Prize winner, and Barbie is incredibly intelligent. But at the same time, she hasn’t been exposed to so many concepts that she’s going to be exposed to in the real world. So it was a fine line between playing naivety without it coming across as unintelligent because I didn’t want her to seem ditzy. That’s just not interesting to play and it’s not interesting to watch either. There are times in the movie where we lean into stereotypes in a self-aware way to play up the comedy, and also have deeper conversations about some issues. But then there are other times where you’re like, okay, if we play up that particular stereotype, it’s going to be boring for people to watch. So it was an interesting challenge. 

On Barbie going up against Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and Oppenheimer:

Greta: Tom Cruise said he’s gonna watch it, he had a ticket. He had tickets for Oppenheimer, Barbie and Indiana Jones. And he was like, ‘I’m gonna go to all these movies, it’s a great summer of movies’. It’s almost like Tom Cruise is giving his stamp of approval or something. I grew up going to the movie theatre as a kid all the time, and where I grew up, it would get really, really, really hot. Going into a dark, cold movie theatre in the middle of summer and projecting yourself into another world for a couple of hours, there’s something about it. And now I get to have made a movie that gets to participate as a big summer movie, and it’s this one. It feels really neat, this whole thing is crazy. 

On women of colour being represented in the Barbie world: 

America: I didn’t really have a connection to Barbie and as a child, I maybe wasn’t conscious of why. I suspect it had a lot to do with not feeling seen and represented in that world. When I finished reading the script, I was so thrilled as just a woman in the world that this movie was getting made, that this version of this movie was getting made by Greta and Margot. As a mother, I was so thrilled that this movie was getting made because it is a different world, for young women, boys and non-binary people growing up in this day and age, to be seen and feel like they can look up to the things that we value in our culture and that they’re represented in it. As little girl America finishing that script, and trying to wrap my mind around the fact that somebody had expanded the Barbie world where there was space for somebody like me and not because I had transformed into some unattainable expectation, but because our culture has shifted to make space for people like us is so beyond moving and inspiring and so exciting to be a part of. It feels important. There I said it, this movie feels important to me on so many levels. 

Issa: My biggest concern was that no one wants to feel tokenized, so who else is a part of it? And I think on a different level outside of, you know, initially just wondering who else was going to be represented as Barbie? I was concerned just even on the level that Barbie looks a certain way, and I had this specific image in my mind of how Barbie was supposed to be presented. But reading the script, it was so self-aware, and then walking onto the set, like, all my fears were quelled, because there was just so much diversity of all types. It’s such a perfect world that consists of everyone, and every type, and that was so beautiful for me. 

On the “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you” tagline: 

Greta: The target audience is everybody. I really do think it’s a movie that can cut across generations and genders and I think everyone can find a pink glittery existential dance party in their heart at the movie theatre this summer. (Winter for us Aussies!) 

Margot: It’s also a film for people who feel indifferent about Barbie. But when I pitched that to marketing, it didn’t really roll off the tongue in the same way.

Greta: That’s not a snappy phrase.

Margot: So we just went with those first two lines. You don’t have to be a Barbie fan to enjoy this movie. This movie is a great movie. You don’t have to watch it because you feel compelled as a woman to support female-driven films. You should watch this movie because it’s a fun movie. And it is so so much fun, and it is so well crafted. We have award-winning cinematographers, set designers and costume designers. Everyone is operating at the highest level. And we’ve got actors like Ryan Gosling and like the actors you see here today, it is a top-quality film. It also happens to be extremely fun. So yes, if you love Barbie, you’re gonna love it. If you hate Barbie, you’re gonna love it. But if you just like a good movie, you’re also going to love it.

Barbie will be released in cinemas on Thursday, July 20.

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Image credits: Warner Bros, Barbie