Greta Gerwig, Mark Ronson and Dua Lipa celebrate the music of ‘Barbie’ at packed Friday night screening and panel

Ray Richmond
·6 min read
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Writer-director Greta Gerwig reveled in the adoration for her summertime box office and cultural phenomenon “Barbie”(nearly $1.5 billion internationally) while flanked by members of the team responsible for its music at a packed Society of Composers & Lyricists-sponsored screening and panel discussion Friday night at the Directors Guild in Hollywood, celebrating a “Barbie: The Album” soundtrack that’s primed for both Oscar and Grammy liftoff over the next four months. Gerwig, Oscar-winning composer and songwriter Mark Ronson, pop star Dua Lipa and songwriter Caroline Ailin. That soundtrack is submitted on the Grammy ballot a whopping 33 times in the various categories, from Billie Eilish to star Ryan Gosling.

On Friday, those joining moderator Tim Greiving discussed how the music all came together, with Ronson – an Academy Award winner in 2019 for “A Star is Born” – saying that it all began with a call from his music supervisor friend George Drakoulias. “He just said, ‘Hey, you want to talk to Greta Gerwig about her new movie?’,” Ronson, who co-wrote and co-produced five songs in the film and co-wrote the score along with longtime collaborator Andrew Wyatt, said. “I was like, ‘No one cool like that ever calls me, so yeah.’ So we got on a Zoom and she said, ‘I’m doing this ‘Barbie’ movie.’ And I was such a fan of Greta’s films, and it just sounded so cool and weird that she was doing ‘Barbie.’ I read the script and it was so funny, I was just in.”

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Originally, Ronson’s marching orders were just to put together two songs – for Barbie’s dance number “Best Day Ever” “as well as a Ken song,” Ronson recalled. “We didn’t know what that meant, what that would be. There was never an idea that Ryan was going to sing…I was just so in love with the script. I was so inspired. They were starting dance rehearsals in a week, so I had to quickly get the instrumental off of what became (the Dua Lipa tune) ‘Dance the Night.’ I thought of Dua while I was making the track. It seemed like a pipedream, maybe Dua will sing on this song.”

Lipa said that Ronson curiously reached out to her via Instagram DM rather than via text or phone call, “which is weird because we’re friends,” she remembered. “But it was just, honestly, the dream message to receive ever…Just immediately I was like, ‘When do you need this song for and when can we get in the studio?’.”

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Ronson spoke about the speed with which he had to work to catch up to Gerwig’s filmmaking process after he leapt into the musical fray, recalling specifically his work on the tune that would become “I’m Just Ken.” “As a songwriter, it’s of course to write from the perspective of the tragic loser – the gift for a songwriter,” he noted. “We were so inspired knowing that Ryan is playing this part, you’re imagining him saying all these lines (in the script). I just had this idea, the hook right away: ‘I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a 10.’ I wrote this chorus demo and I just sent it to Grreta.”

For her part, Gerwig – a three-time Oscar nominee for “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” – recalled her excitement at receiving versions of both “Dance the Night” and “I’m Just Ken” in progress. “I was in London at the time, and I’d wake up in the morning and would just get these gifts. I was waking up at 5 o’clock and I just remember playing (“I’m Just Ken”) and going to wake up (husband and co-writer) Noah (Baumbach). I was like, ‘Listen to this.’ I just couldn’t believe it. Then I was like, I need more of this song…Right away, I knew I loved it.”

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Moderator Greiving also primed the participants to talk about the disco influences in the “Barbie” soundtrack. Gerwig talked about loving the campiness of the “Saturday Night Fever” and “Xanadu” soundtracks – and disco in general. “‘Grease’ is a disco musical, and it has a quality of taking place in no time, but every time,” Gerwig said. “I thought that was sort of the essence of what I wanted to go for. So when we started talking and (Ronson) brought up this incredible icon Dua, I was like, there’s no one who more encapsulates that spirit of sharp, brilliant disco.”

Asked why she finds disco to be timeless rather than tied as it long was to the Seventies, Gerwig said, “Of all the musical genres, disco’s assumption is that you want to dance. What a nice assumption for a genre of music to make. When people get together, they like to do some grooving, and I think that that’s timeless…It’s music that is inviting everyone. It’s why it plays at weddings. It’s for your grandma and for you. Everyone can dance. It’s not a music that says, ‘We don’t want your moves.’ It’s a music that says, ‘Come and bring your moves’.”

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Ronson agreed that disco is timeless, “though not all disco. I’m talking about the Bee Gees, MJ and the best Abba. When you could combine incredible melody with a vocal performance and a beat that could just drive everyone to the dance floor. You’re hitting dance, you’re hitting euphoria, you’re hitting melody and arrangement.” He added that Lipa “just made the best modern disco music of this era, who truly made disco fresh.”

Another major influence for “Barbie” from Gerwig’s perspective, though not necessarily music-related, was Sylvester Stallone. Gerwig has been on the as saying she loves Stallone movies. She was asked Friday if the music in any of his films was an inspiration for the Ken character or a reference point. “Yeah,” she replied. “Ryan Gosling also loves Sylvester Stallone. His faux mink came from Stallone’s amazing outfits. I feel like Ken was nothing if not a man in search of adornment. So that was a really key moment where we were like, ‘It’s Sly.’ We talked about specific moments we really loved in his films. I actually got to talk to (Stallone) recently, which was extremely exciting.”

And? Has Stallone seen “Barbie”?

“Yes,” Gerwig confirmed, “and he was into it, for which I was very honored.”

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