‘Barbie’ Producer Tom Ackerley on Blending Artistic and Commercial Needs: “Trust Your Filmmaker”
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Tom Ackerley and his production company LuckyChap — which he runs alongside wife Margot Robbie — aren’t new to the awards conversation. Their 2020 feature Promising Young Woman won an Oscar for best screenplay, their Netflix series Maid was nominated for three Emmys and their debut production I, Tonya nabbed star Allison Janney an Oscar for best performance in a supporting role. Yet Ackerley is adamant that he never considered Barbie‘s potential for critical success when they began work on the film over four years ago.
“I don’t think we ever go into a movie thinking about its acclaim or awards,” Ackerley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “But I do think that seeing the way the humanity of the story really connected with people — that started shifting our idea of what the movie could be. I think a large part of what made it an ‘awards movie’ was how meaningful it was for viewers.”
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Ackerley called THR during the middle of a whirlwind promotional schedule to discuss what he’s learned during his 10 years as a producer, what he remembers most from the making of Barbie and, of course, to make (yet another) comment on a potential sequel.
How did the early pitching process, especially in regards to Mattel, feel different than past projects?
Mattel was our first meeting, even before taking it to Warner Brothers. We went into the meeting really interested in the property but not really knowing what we would do with it or how we would crack it. If I remember correctly, we were either in production or post-production on Promising Young Woman, and we were going to start going into production on Maid, the TV show we did with Netflix. A big part of our job in that meeting was educating Mattel on the company — what LuckyChap stood for and what we believed in and how we liked to work.
You’re entering your 10th year as a production company — what changes have you seen from studios in the ways they’re taking to the stories you want to make? Especially given how focused you are on women’s stories and female filmmakers.
I think we’ve gotten to know our people better during these years. There’s an ability to be frank and direct in what we believe in. As a company, we are always going to try to take risks and support big, bold, original ideas. But I think making a movie, after your first movie, will never get easier. The second we get comfortable or feel like we’re doing something that we’ve done before, that’s when we’ll likely miss. I’m sure we’ll have misses for other reasons in the future, but as long as we’re supporting the people we really believe in and giving them the belief that they can take a big swing, then we’re meeting the challenge.
Margot has spoken about being very adamant that the last line of the film — “I’m here to see my gynecologist” — be preserved through the notes process and the edit. Did you have anything that you felt similarly protective over?
From the early inception of this movie, I think the goal was just to preserve the entirety of Greta [Gerwig’s] vision within the boundaries we had. When Greta and Noah delivered the draft of the script, it was something they wrote during the early lockdown period, and they didn’t know if movies would come back to cinemas again, so they took really audacious swings. I think Margot and I were very aligned when we were working on the movie in post that the last line was something that was never going to be cut. And I do think the version of the movie that we put out is the version we’re most proud of. We were never forced to cut anything. We never had a thought about the finished movie, like, “Oh I wish this or that was in there.”
When you read that first draft, what stood out as the most daunting to you at the time?
A lot of it was the comedy. This was a PG-13 movie about a property that is very beloved, so there was a lot of pressure around that. I also think that the idea that everything we saw in the movie was going to be bespoke, that it would be in-camera as much as possible using older styles of filming technique, that everything had to be tactile with very little green screen [was daunting]. When we read a scene, we had to visualize it and think that we actually had to build it. And we had to figure out how to get all these actors, from a true ensemble cast, all into the scenes and on the set at the same time. You had to have all your actors available every single day so you could see them all in the dream houses or on the beach. We also had to have the music prepared upfront since, even though it’s not a musical, the music was a huge part of the film.
How sick are you of being asked about a potential sequel?
I have a party line that I use, which is that we’re still washing the pink from under our fingernails. (Laughs). But the truth is that we’re not talking about it. We haven’t talked about it. We set out to make the best version of this film that we could possibly make, and we never had a conversation about where would we go next. We’re still letting this movie live its life, and if we come back to it in the future, then we’ll see.
How will you ever close the book on Barbie? I’m asking this sort of literally. Is it the day after the Oscars, when you can finally move on mentally and emotionally?
I think it will always be a part of me and a part of this company. I think it will linger. We still talk to Greta and Noah every day, and David Heyman and Robbie Brenner, we’re all still in close communication. It’s not to say we’re not all onto other things. Noah’s filming something in London right now and so on.
What did you learn from producing this film that you’ll take into future producing projects?
I think every time we release a movie or TV show it changes the way we work and the way we are within this industry. The lesson on Barbie is to trust your filmmaker. It’s something we always did and will continue to do, but this really made us triple down on that. We have an unwavering belief.
Do you have a holy shit moment that stands out from this whole experience?
I mean, there are so many. There was that first day on set, which I know I’ve talked about. There was a scene that we filmed that really showed me how powerful the film could be. It was the scene between Margot and Rhea Perlman, where she’s talking about how mothers stand still — it was deadly quiet on set that day. I remember thinking, “Is the camera shaking?” But it wasn’t, one of the grips holding the techno crane was crying and unable to hold the crane straight. It was so incredible to see these very masculine grips crying from the scene, I get goosebumps even talking about it now.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
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