Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on ‘Barbie,’ Kenergy and the genius of Greta Gerwig

The wait is almost over, dolls.

The Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie hits theaters on Friday, July 21, and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who portray the titular doll and her boyfriend, Ken, respectively, told ABC News ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike what it was like to make the candy-colored film.

“I didn’t want to mess this up,” Gosling said. “What Margot created, what Greta created, was so fun and perfect. I think all of us just felt, like, a lot of pressure to not be the one to mess it up.”

To prepare, Gosling channeled all of his Kenergy to get the role just right. Finding his inner Ken “was a journey,” he said.

“I thought I’d start with Beach, since that’s his job. Very hard to know what that is exactly,” Gosling said.

Robbie, who also serves as one of the film’s producers, says there would be no Barbie without Gerwig.

“I just don’t even know how we’d approach a Barbie movie without a visionary director like Greta,” Robbie said. “Greta, as a filmmaker, has a way of honoring the past, but also bringing it into a modern-day setting.”

This duality of Gerwig, as Robbie describes — the extensive knowledge she has about classic films mixed with her innate ability to “reference a TikTok” in the same breath — is what made her the perfect choice for director.

“There’s a lot of that in this movie where you’re holding two things in the same conversation,” Robbie said. “We can have this silly, absurd comedy at the same time that you can be making a statement about life. And someone like Greta does that deftly and she makes it look not just easy, but delightful.”

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