Ryan Gosling Initially Turned Down ‘I’m Just Ken’ Oscars Performance Ask Before Unleashing Inner Pop Star

“I’m Just Ken” almost didn’t make it to the 2024 Academy Awards stage. During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Ryan Gosling admitted that his first response when the offer to perform the Barbie song was brought to him was: “100 percent no.” The actor eventually changed his mind but shared that his initial reluctance was rooted in the fact that “there’s a lot of ways that can go wrong.”

Gosling unleashing his inner pop star turned out to be one of the best moments in recent Oscars history. Everything — from his all-pink suit and cowboy hat to special guests Slash, Wolfgang Van Halen, and Mark Ronson — went incredibly right. When “I’m Just Ken” was nominated for Best Original Song, curiosity grew around whether Gosling would follow the Academy Awards tradition of each nominated song in the category being performed at the ceremony.

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During rehearsal, the actor’s seven and nine-year-old daughters joined him on set. “It was their interest in Barbie and their disinterest in Ken that sort of started all of this,” Gosling said. “It’s really been a team effort. And they were on the film, and they came to set when I filmed the number. But it’s also been like a lot of this has no context for them. It’s just like a lot of fake tan stains around the house.” By the time he took the stage, he says, he realized his daughters “know all the choreography better than I do.”

Gosling was already in promo mode for his next film, The Fall Guy, during the 2024 Oscars. His hair was no longer bleached blonde and he was back to regularly wearing actual clothes, not just swim trunks and vest with no shirt underneath. Plus, he finally settled the Barbenheimer beef with his The Fall Guy co-star Emily Blunt. But when it was time to revisit his hilariously chaotic Barbie character, his daughters noted: “Dad’s Ken-ing again.”

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