‘Barbie’ Co-Writer Noah Baumbach Initially Thought Film Was a ‘Terrible Idea,’ but Greta Gerwig ‘Signed Me Up’: ‘You’ve Gotta Get Us Out of This’

Angelique Jackson and Jazz Tangcay
·10 min read
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As “Barbie” continued its run of pop culture domination over the pre-Halloween weekend, the film’s co-writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach dished on their writing process following a special screening at the Writers Guild of America West headquarters.

Because Baumbach sat out the “Barbie” press tour in accordance with the WGA strike, Friday night’s screening marked his first in-depth interview about the $1.4 billion-grossing film. Sitting opposite Judd Apatow, who moderated the hour-long conversation, Baumbach reacted to the worldwide acclaim for the film, which was evidenced by the completely sold-out screening.

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“The reason you make anything is because you’re saying to this imaginary audience, ‘Maybe you feel this way too?’” he said. “So, when the whole world seems to feel that way, then that’s very gratifying and very moving. Because sometimes people are like, ‘No we don’t recognize that feeling.’”

Then, Baumbach made a confession. “I thought it was a terrible idea and Greta signed me up for it,” he said, recounting his initial reaction to the “Barbie” gig.

As the story goes, Margot Robbie — who was producing the project under her LuckyChap Entertainment production banner — approached Gerwig about writing the film. She said yes, but only if Baumbach came too.

“I was just like, ‘I don’t see how this is going to be good at all,’” Baumbach continued. “I kind of blocked it for a while and every time she’d bring it up, I’d be like, ‘You’ve gotta get us out of this.’ And then the pandemic happened…”

It’s important to note that Baumbach and Apatow kicked off the Q&A without Gerwig, as the director hurried across town from another “Barbie” screening event. As if on cue, Gerwig appeared and was forced to stride through the theater while the audience applauded.

“I’m so sorry,” Gerwig said taking her seat on stage. “It’s also my nightmare to walk down a long row in heels.”

Because she’d arrived just in time to share her side of the story, Gerwig detailed all the reasons Baumbach said they shouldn’t take the gig: “’There’s no character and there’s no story, so why do you want to do this? There’s no entry point.’ And he’d do, like, side calls to try to get us out of it.”

But Baumbach’s attitude changed during the pandemic when Gerwig presented him a couple of pages illustrating her idea.

“It was Barbie waking up in her Dreamhouse and coming out to her backyard and meeting somebody who was sick and dying,” Baumbach said. “I read these pages and I thought, ‘I understand now what this is.’ … The movie is about embracing your mortality and about the mess of it all, so it was exciting.”

From there, the process became one of trying to “amuse each other and one up each other,” Baumbach said. “Then it was the most fun I think either of us have ever had, right? And then at a certain point, I was like, ‘I think this is the best thing we’ve ever written.’ I know enough always just to follow what Greta says, so even in my bellyaching and revolting, I kind of knew, ‘Well if she really believes it, then there’s something there.’”

After ironing out Baumbach’s crisis of faith, Gerwig explained why she initially said yes to Robbie and LuckyChap.

“It wasn’t that I had a take of an idea. It just seemed strange enough,” Gerwig said. “Everybody knows what Barbie is. It’s been around since 1959. Everybody has an opinion about it; its runs the gamut from ‘I hate her. I love her. She’s an inspiration. She’s terrible.’ I felt like there was enough there. In a way, it was like saying, ‘If you leave us alone, we’ll figure it out.’ I find whenever I’ve shared ideas too early, they become bad, then the movie’s not going to be any good. I don’t like to talk about things too early or pitch things or show treatments too early because it feels like it’s gonna somehow wreck what the movie is.”

As for their collaborative process, Gerwig and Baumbach tend to write away from each other and then trade their work. “Then we listen to hear if the other person’s laughing,” Gerwig explained. Baumbach described it more like lurking in anticipation of the other’s reaction.

During the conversation, Gerwig also opened up about directing the film and overcoming the pressures she felt to deliver with her first big-budget production.

“I was aware of the fact that I wanted it to work and also that it was a risk,” she said when Apatow asked what it was like to have “all the toys” for this production. (“Barbie’s budget was $145 million.) “It was a risk for the studio to make it and for Mattel to make it. And it’s also, as a ‘lady director’ and a lady thing and it’s a big risk for a lady – in that context, I wanted it to work because I wanted to maybe make it easier for whatever the next thing is.”

So, how’d she learn to embrace that pressure? By reminding herself that Warner Bros. is a movie studio that was always planning to spend this money on movies anyway, so why not hers. “This isn’t money that was earmarked for something else,” she said.

And because the studio was willing to spend big money on “Barbie,” Gerwig noted that the artisans behind the film — from production design and props to costume to the action vehicle department — got to go big and demonstrate “extraordinary levels of craftsmanship.”

Gerwig likened being on set to going to see a symphony perform. “I have this palpable sense when I look at the musicians on stage and I’m like, ‘The number of hours that this represents. How many hours every single person on the stage put into practice.’ You get that palpable sense every day on a movie set on a scale like this,” she said. “That was extraordinary. I really hope this is the people watching it get that same feeling.”

Read on for more highlights from the talk:

Gerwig and Baumbach wrote Ken for Ryan Gosling because of “Saturday Night Live”

When the conversation turned to casting Gosling as Ken, Apatow asked how they knew the Oscar-nominee, who is best known for his dramatic and romantic roles, was so funny.

“To be totally honest, ‘SNL,’ He’s hosted like seven times and he’s great at it,” Gerwig said. “We watch ‘SNL’ like every week when it’s on. He’s funny on ‘SNL’ in the same way he’s moving in a dramatic role: he’s always kind of doing it from inside, even when it’s the most ridiculous sketch. He commits 100%. And as soon as we said his name, we were like, ‘Yeah, it’s the person.’”

Baumbach then confirmed that the script was written with “Ken Ryan Gosling” throughout.

America Ferrera added the “always be grateful” line to Gloria’s powerful monologue

Among the film’s most powerful scenes is the monologue Ferrera’s real-world character Gloria delivers about the double standards women to snap Robbie’s Barbie out of her existential crisis. Gerwig said her impulse to write the dialogue came out of necessity to the story: “What would be the thing that would make these Barbies snap out of it?”

(For the record, Baumbach had a slightly different memory of how the section came together, recalling that Gerwig wrote it and then they had to find somewhere to put it. To break the tie, Apatow joked that he’d sent the idea in an email that said, “I feel like there’s something missing here about women and their feelings, and then you cut and paste that into your script.”)

“I felt very much like it wasn’t just something that we came up with and then delivered to America. It was something that we talked about a lot and worked on a lot and she brought her experiences and embroidered it with things that were specific to her,” Gerwig said. “The line ‘always be grateful’ came from her.”

Allan’s ending was influenced by Mike Leigh films

One of the film’s fan favorite characters was Allan, a discontinued doll who was created to be Ken’s “buddy” and could fit into all the same clothes. The fact that those two were the only defining characteristics of the character was hilariously tragic.

Michael Cera was on the filmmakers’ wish list to play the role, but because he’d just welcomed a new baby, his reps weren’t sure he’d be available. He ultimately said yes and when he arrived on set, Cera and Gerwig bonded over their love of Mike Leigh’s work (“Another Year,” “Vera Drake,” “Secrets & Lies”).

“Then we talked about Allan and about how he is very tragic. He’s funny but there’s a deep sadness that is unresolved,” Gerwig recalled, explaining that she wasn’t totally sure what kind of ending the character should have. “I was like, ‘Well does Allan get something at the end?’ And he said, ‘No, let’s do what Mike Leigh would do.’ So we decided he’d have an ending but we wouldn’t try to gloss it over.’”

Nods to “Remington Steele” and Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” ended up on the cutting room floor, but Gerwig fought with Baumbach to keep that Pavement mention.

At one point, Apatow asked who wins when Gerwig and Baumbach disagree about elements of the script? “Naturally, whoever is the most convincing wins, and then the other thinks, ‘You’re probably right,’” Baumbach replied.

One example was a debate over a reference to indie rock band Pavement. Baumbach wrote the joke — which is made during the mansplaining sequence — and he wasn’t sure that it was working.

“It was about the rhythmic thing at that point in the deprogramming. We’ve heard enough of these things; let’s just get through it,” Baumbach explained. But Gerwig said no, she wanted to hear this Ken (played by Ncuti Gatwa) explain how Malkmus “really harnessed the talk-singing of Lou Reed.”

“I wanted the full thing and then it turned out to be hilarious,” she said. “And then the actual Stephen Malkmus — who I love, we love Pavement — saw it and better, his daughter saw it. She was sitting in the theater and then heard Stephen Malkmus, and she’s like ‘My dad.’”

Another draft of the script featured Rhea Perlman’s Ruth Handler making a joke in reference to the “Remington Steele,” the 1982 spy series starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan.

“Ruth Handler created Barbie, but her husband was the face of Mattel but she really was the brains of the operation,” Baumbach explained, comparing their dynamic to that of Zimbalist and Brosnan on the show. So they wrote a line underlining that: “Rhea did it hilariously. ‘I ‘Remington Steele’d’ it for a while with my husband,’” she quipped using the show’s title as a verb. It was great, but didn’t make the final cut.

The mansplaining sequence’s now-famous “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” joke was once a reference to Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” director’s cut and its removal of the movie’s controversial voiceover.

“One of the Barbies says to Ken, ‘Oh my god, I never would have realized that Deckard was a replicant,’” Gerwig recalled, laughing. “Then when she gets unbrainwashed, there’s a version where she said, ‘I liked the voiceover. I needed it to help me understand what was happening. Nobody’s following this.’”

In fact, Scott was in an earlier draft – they wanted to him to make a cameo, but the filmmakers declined to discuss it further. “It wasn’t making fun of him. We loved him as we love all of our references,” Baumbach said, as Gerwig chimed in: “Every reference we had was out of love. We love Sly Stallone. Everything was a lighters-up tribute.”

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