Barbie casting director shares big-name stars who turned down coveted Ken roles

24 July 2023 , 21:57

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Barbie casting director shares stars who turned down coveted Ken roles

Ryan Gosling has been winning Oscar-winning praise for his role of Ken in Greta Gerwig's smash-hit movie Barbie alongside the likes of Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir.

However, casting directors have now revealed that there were a few other actors who were forced to turn down Ken roles for the pink-themed movie, which stars Margot Robbie in the titular role.

One of the main reasons actors turned down the coveted role to take up residence in Barbieland was the three-month-long filming commitments in London.

Among those names were Schitt's Creek star Dan Levy, Dear Evan Hansen actor Ben Platt and Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang.

The movie's casting director Allison Jones said: "They were, I'm not kidding... really bummed they couldn't do it."

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A few actors were forced to turn down Ken roles for Barbie (FILM STILL / HANDOUT)

Allison also added in the interview with Vanity Fair that the role played by Michael Cera was first turned down by Jonathan Groff. "Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, 'I can't believe I'm typing this but I can't do Allan,'" she recalled.

Meanwhile, as expected, Barbie has been breaking box office records open its release, living up to its status as the biggest movie event of the year.

Dan Levy, Ben Platt and Bowen Yang missed out on the opportunity to star alongside Ryan Gosling (FILM STILL / HANDOUT)

According to Variety, Barbie has made a whopping $155 million (£120million) at the US box office in its opening run at the cinema, with it breaking a record for the biggest debut ever for a movie directed by a woman.

And not only has it made a staggering amount in America, but Barbie has made an estimated $182 million (£140million) at the international box office, with it on track to have made $337million (£265million) globally after its opening weekend, according to Digital Spy.

Barbie has been breaking box office records open its release (FILM STILL / HANDOUT)

It went up against Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which centred on the design process of the atomic bomb, with the starkly different movie also doing extremely well at the box office.

Dedicated film fans primed themselves ready to sit down for four hours straight in order to watch Barbenheimer back-to-back, with many cinema-goers buying tickets for both screenings.

Variety has reported that both hit films that are dubbed as Barbenheimer have "worked to fuel the biggest collective box office weekend of the pandemic era", with it also being the fourth-biggest overall weekend in history.

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Jabeen Waheed