Apparently, Ben Affleck was supposed to appear in Barbie. This week, Michael Cera revealed that the 51-year-old actor was planning to have a brief participation in the film directed by Greta Gerwig.
In a conversation on the podcast Happy Sad Confusedby Josh Horowitz The actor who played Allan, Ken’s best friend, revealed that Affleck was supposed to have a cameo in the scene where his character fights all the Kens.
“He wasn’t even supposed to fight in the movie,” Cera said on the podcast, according to Entertainment Weekly. “Am I allowed to say what it was supposed to be? It was supposed to be Ben Affleck. “Am I allowed to say that?” added the actor.
Following the revelation, Cera explained that Ben Affleck had to leave the project due to a commitment to Air, a film he directed and starred in. “I think Ben wanted to do it, but he was directing his movie. “They didn’t find out until the last moment,” said the actor.
Michael Cera assured that the fight scene against the Kens represented a challenge for him, due to the acrobatics he had to do. “I had to join the specialist team. I had just gotten over Covid and they made me train and I almost died doing a warm-up. I had to lie down in the trailer and they sent a nurse to see me,” she said on the podcast.
Ben Affleck is not the only actor who had to leave the film of the popular Mattel doll. Timothée Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Dan Levy and Bowen Yang stand out among the actors and actresses who were considered for the roles of Barbie and Ken. Even before Cera, Jonathan Groff was originally considered to play Allan.
Ryan Gosling was also on the verge of not being in Barbie. Recently, the actor revealed that he almost turned down the role of Ken, for which he also has a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars.
In an interview with Variety, Gosling said that when he was offered the role he did not accept it immediately, because he wanted to take time to be with his family, his wife Eva Méndez and his two daughters. “I didn’t want to miss anything,” he said.
At that moment, Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig took his response calmly and decided to wait for him, they knew that Gosling was the ideal actor to bring Ken to life. “Months later he would call my agents or something and say, ‘Hey, who did you get to play Ken?’ And they were like, ‘Greta says it’s you,’” she recalled.
“In the end I thought, ‘Who am I to argue with Greta Gerwig and Margot?’ They had a vision for it. They believed it. And they believed I should do it more than I believed I shouldn’t do it. At one point, I thought, ‘They see something I don’t see.’ I thought it was such a fantastic role that anyone could play it. “I understand it now, but it took me a while,” Gosling added.
Contrary to what many might think, Gosling said that playing Ken was challenging. “There were times when I thought, ‘I haven’t felt like I’ve worked this hard since. Blue Valentine‘”, said.
The actor admitted that he felt a lot of pressure because he wanted to do well. “I thought, ‘I can’t screw this up. I can’t be the guy who ruined the Barbie movie. So if I’m going to do it, I have to do more than I know I’m going to do,’” she recounted.
Keep reading:
- Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will work together again in a Netflix movie
- Ryan Gosling is willing to perform “I’m Just Ken” at the Oscars
- Why haven’t Ryan Gosling’s daughters seen Barbie yet?