In the Barbieverse, there’s lots of Barbies and lots of Kens, but only one Allan. And according to Michael Cera, who plays the sole male doll in “Barbie” who simply does not feel the Ken-ergy, he had to reach out to director Greta Gerwig personally to snag the singular role.
Variety reports (via a video interview with GQ) that Cera had to go around his agent and contact Gerwig on his own to make sure he landed a part in the new blockbuster. “It was a kind of very last-minute casting,” Cera said. “My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie. It’s the “Barbie” movie. Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months of something, so I told them you probably wouldn’t want to to do it because you probably don’t want to go to London.’”
But Cera actually really wanted the part. “I was like, ‘What! Call them back!'” continued the actor. “He didn’t like blow it or anything, but he’s like, ‘I managed their expectations that you might not want to do it.’ I was like, ‘How can I not do it? I need to do it!’” That’s when Cera reached to Gerwig on his own. “I somehow got Greta’s email address, I think through a common friend of ours, and I emailed her like, ‘Can I be in it? Can I do that part?’” Cera went on. “And she was like, ‘Let’s get on a Zoom right now. Here’s a Zoom link, I’ll be on there for the next hour.’ So she was just hanging out on the Zoom, like, ‘Click the link whenever you’re ready.’ And then we talked about it, and it just all happened really fast from there.”
And that’s how Cera became Allan, a male doll immune to the lessons of patriarchy Ryan Gosling‘s Ken brings back to Barbie Land in “Barbie.” “Allan is a sad figure,” Cera explained. “He’s just a person that doesn’t really have any place in the world.” Gerwig bases the character on an actual Mattel doll that was eventually discontinued. “It just wasn’t selling. The world just didn’t need for Ken to have a friend,” said Certa. “Barbie is good, we can get a lot more Barbies in here, and friends of hers. But we’ve got Ken, and we don’t need to go deeper in that direction. So Allan fell by the wayside a little bit.”
For those who haven’t seen “Barbie” yet, Allan plays an integral supporting role in the new movie. But it’s not worth spoiling any of the fun for those yet to see it. Meanwhile, “Barbie” continues to rake in money at the box office, with a global take now over $1.2 billion. It will almost certainly surpass “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as the highest-grossing film of 2023 before the summer ends, namely because it’s been the #1 movie at the box office since its opening weekend.
So how high will “Barbie” soar? That remains to be seen. But in terms of Gerwig’s film, Margot Robbie‘s Stereotypical Barbie and the other Barbies wouldn’t get far without Cera’s Allan. And Cera brings something special to the role that even potential candidate Jonathan Groff couldn’t. Forget the ken-ergy: maybe it’s Allan-ergy that the world needs more of.
