This article was originally published on April 4 and updated on April 27.
The Barbie movie is using the tagline “Barbie is everything” but they might as well make it “Barbie is everyone” because, whoa nelly, are there a lot of folks in this flick. They say it takes a village but Barbie’s bringing in the entire toy store.
We all survived the debut of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken but how about a handful of other Barbies, Kens, and friends?
On April 4, Warner Bros. premiered a handful of new posters for the Barbie movie, showcasing a handful of cast members that rival Robbie and Gosling as big-name draws. There are a lot of Barbie dolls, you see, and thus there are a lot of people who you could possibly bring in to also play Barbie which makes for more reason for people to see the movie.
So, who’s playing who in Barbie when the movie premieres on July 21? A better question might be, who isn’t?
Barbie actors, besides Robbie, include — deep breath — pop star Dua Lipa, model Hari Nef, WWE’s John Cena, and actors Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Rita Aryu, Nicola Coughlan, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Sharon Rooney, and Ana Cruz Kayne, accompanied by four Kens besides Gosling: Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Scott Evans.
And that doesn’t even include the people playing the human-sized characters (like Helen Mirren and Will Ferrell) or the additional Barbie hangers-on, like Emerald Fennell as the controversial Midge doll (once mistakenly blamed for promoting teen pregnancy) and Michael Cera (!) as, uh, Allan.
Not too hard to predict the jokes that we’ll get for ol’ Allan going off of that face that Cera’s making but hey, the Barbie movie ain’t gonna make bank off its nuance nor should it.
Considering the potential fluffiness of a Barbie rom-com, director Greta Gerwig has savvily stacked her cast with a diverse array of filmic talent in order to give her movie a shot of extra f-u-n (fun!!!).
Everything about the Barbie movie, from the teaser trailers to the cast photos, screams good time. You wanna go see an easy, entertaining flick in the middle of summer? Don’t get better than Barbie.
The film looks like less of a hacky, thoughtless cash-in on a marketable brand and more of a knowingly camp quirkfest all but guaranteed to generate a summer’s-worth of a memes. What else would you want from a Barbie movie??
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