Ryan Gosling is bringing Neon Genesis Evangelion levels of existential pathos to the role of Ken in Barbie. The man just won’t stop saying the darkest stuff about the bubbliest blond in dolldom. Speaking to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Gosling expressed his disbelief that anyone would even care about Ken or his struggles. “Some people were kind of clutching their pearls about Ken, as though they ever thought about Ken for a second before this,” he said. “They never played with Ken!”
Gosling’s Fallon appearance is sad on two levels: (1) His hair is back to normal blond levels, which means filming has wrapped and there will be no more BTS paparazzi shots of the Barbie shoot, and (2), Jesus Christ, Ken has no internal sense of self-worth. Gosling described Ken as just one of Barbie’s accessories, maybe third best after the house and the car. This is almost as sad as his sound bite on the Gray Man red carpet that was almost word-for-word Charlotte Lucas’s speech in Pride and Prejudice: “Ken’s got no money, he’s got no job, he’s got no car, he’s got no house. He’s going through some stuff.”
Gosling explained that the angst of Ken was central to his decision to take the role. He told Fallon that after receiving the script from Gerwig, he went into his backyard to have a think about the role. “Best script I’ve ever read. I walk out in the backyard, and do you know where I found Ken, Jimmy? Face down in the mud next to a squished lemon,” he said. Gosling took a photo of the grim tableau: “I texted it to Greta, and I said, ‘I shall be your Ken, for his story must be told.’”
