In addition to starring as the lead Barbie in the massive blockbuster “Barbie,” Margot Robbie is also a producer on the film. This meant, way before Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach were attached, Robbie was out there trying to find a home for this film, as well as trying to find the right storytellers to bring it to life. Clearly, she succeeded, as “Barbie” is the biggest film of 2023. But as she recently said in Variety’s Actors on Actors, Robbie was utterly convinced no studio would make the film, especially after she read the script from Gerwig and Baumbach.
According to Margot Robbie, she had no idea what to expect from the story Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach were cooking up after they were hired to bring “Barbie” to the big screen. But once she read the script, Robbie was so impressed by the writing, and she was convinced it was too subversive to be made by a major corporation (Mattel) for its first major film.
“They’re never going to let us make this,” Robbie admitted saying after she first read the script. “It’s such a shame that this brilliant piece of writing will never see the light of day cause they are never gonna let us make this. And they did, thank god, and a massive credit to them, but it was a lot of conversations, about getting them comfortable with being very, very, very uncomfortable.”
The issues that she found with convincing Mattel to make the film were less about the content of the script, but actual issues with having them understand what a script meant versus what it would look like on the big screen.
“They had never made a movie, so it was an educational process of this is what you’re reading on the page, but—it took me a little bit to realize some of their concerns could be assuaged by the process of the film,” she explained. “For some things they’re like, ‘But Barbie is saying this,’ and I would be like, ‘OK, but this is how I’m gonna do it,’ and then I’d say it and they’d [understand] and go, ‘Ohhhhh.’ ‘See, my face is telling you how I would think that. The words are saying, but that’s subtext and there’s subtext all through it.’ And they’d be like, “Oh, ok.’”
That said, there were still some issues that had to be worked out, with more concerns from Mattel about being an actual part of the film’s storyline. (In the film, Mattel is led by Will Ferrell’s character and is seen as sort of villainous dimwits.)
READ MORE: Margot Robbie Doesn’t Think ‘Barbie’ Needs A Sequel: “We Put Everything Into This One”
“And then there’s of course, some jokes where they were like, ‘Do we have to use the word fascist? And do we need that bit where the Mattel employee gets shot? Do they have to be shot?’ And we’re like, ‘Yep,’” said Robbie. “So there were certain jokes, and I was so prepared to fight for certain jokes and be like, ‘We have to have that joke because of this and this and this, and some of them they were fine with and others I didn’t think they would have a problem with. But it was never a case of, ‘They didn’t like that, let’s cut it,’ it was like, ‘No, no, no, we need to explain why we think that should be in [the movie]. And get everyone comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Ultimately, as mentioned above, Robbie did her job as a producer beautifully and the film was made in the exact way Gerwig and Baumbach envisioned. That meant, “Barbie” would become a huge crowd pleaser that also has this subversive streak throughout the whole thing. Though it might not be as intellectual as it thinks it is, there’s no denying “Barbie” is one of the smarter blockbusters of the past couple of years.