Barbie: It Took Two Full Days To Shoot America Ferrera's Big Monologue

Contains spoilers for "Barbie"

Those who have seen Greta Gerwig's film know that the centerpiece of the movie — besides Ken's (Ryan Gosling) dream ballet — is a barn-burner of a speech from America Ferrera, who plays Gloria, a Mattel employee who ends up spending some time in Barbie Land. While Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) is faced with a full-blown existential crisis, Gloria, trying to help her and the other Barbies take their kingdom back from rebelling, patriarchal Kens, explains to Barbie that what she's feeling is, sadly, normal. Women, Gloria explains, have to be every single thing at once — they have to take care of everyone around them and never be selfish, but also fight for themselves in a world that works against them. As Ferrera revealed, shooting this hugely important speech took quite a while.

Ferrera told Vanity Fair, "We shot it over two days. It's one part of a much bigger scene with lots of characters in it. I had to do it many, many times for other people's coverage and to get through the whole scene and over the course of two days. But she gave me so much freedom with it. There were moments in shooting the movie where Greta really had written something in a very specific way that she heard a very specific way in her head with particular cadence in a particular speed or a particular inflection. I thought maybe this would be like that, but it was the opposite. She wanted me to completely make it my own and find it as we did it."

So how many times did Ferrera perform the monologue over those two days? "It felt like 500," Ferrera said, even revealing that Ariana Greenblatt, who plays her daughter Sasha, ended up learning it along with her. "I'm sure it wasn't. It was probably 30 to 50 full runs of it, top to bottom. By the end, Ariana recited the monologue to me because she had memorized it because that's how many times I had said it."

"I have my own prep and process as an actor on any day to drop in and be in an open place where I'm exploring and having fun," Ferrera said when interviewer Rebecca Ford asked how she prepared for a monologue that certainly feels like the film's central thesis statement — as well as a personal message from Gerwig to the audience. "I think that part of it was — this was also based on Greta's direction — neither one of us went into it feeling like it's got to grow and crescendo to this big moment where you burst into tears or you're laughing so hard you cry."

"There were no targets to hit," Ferrera continued after Ford asked if changes or tweaks happened during filming. "It was much more a moment-to-moment drop in. Truly, every take was very different. There were takes that leaned into anger. There were takes that leaned into laughter. It really did, over the course of filming, find a shape. It was about just staying as present in the moment and just seeing really where the words would take it."

Gerwig definitely had actors in mind for several of the roles in "Barbie" — as Robbie and Gosling revealed in Buzzfeed's puppy interview, the script marked their lines as "Margot Barbie" and "Ryan Ken." As it turns out, Gerwig also wanted Ferrera to deliver the movie's biggest monologue by far.

"It's one of the first things Greta mentioned to me even before I read the script," Ferrera said when Ford asked what she's initially thought of both the script and this huge moment. "She said, 'I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I've always imagined you saying this.' While that was flattering, it also felt like pressure in the nicest way. I read the monologue and it hit me as powerful and meaningful. It also felt like, wow, what a gift as an actor to get to deliver something that feels so cathartic and truthful. But it also felt like this pivotal moment that I obviously didn't want to mess up. There was a little bit of healthy pressure around it."

That said, even though Gerwig obviously had a clear vision for the monologue, she and Ferrera came up with one of its most pivotal lines — the idea that while women have to contain multitudes and be perfect at all times, they always need to be grateful to men. "One thing that Greta and I added together to it was the 'always be grateful' line, which came out of a conversation that we had: this internalized feeling that we're lucky to be here," the actress said. "But it really is of a piece and I think it compounds. The longer it goes, the more meaning it has because it is truly endless, the list of targets and expectations."

"Barbie" is, by and large, a funny and heightened film, but it has things to say — and Gloria's monologue somehow strikes the perfect tone between serious, thought-provoking, and emotional. It doesn't bring the movie to a halt, but it propels it, helping Barbies snap out of their funk and take back the land the Kens have transformed. Ferrera told Ford that, despite the over-the-top tone of the rest of the movie, Gerwig wanted a grounded approach for this part.

"I think for me, when it came time to shoot it, my big question was, 'okay, so how are we playing this? Am I playing this slightly humorously? Am I trying to deliver it in a tone that still fits into the tone of Barbie Land?'" Ferrera said. "I was a bit surprised when Greta really pushed me to be as real and grounded as possible and not make it feel like it's the truth, but it's Barbie Land pink truth. It was interesting that I initially felt that we wouldn't just go as straightforward and real with it as we did, that I assumed that there might be a tone that maybe made it, I don't know, I guess easier for people to hear or to swallow. Greta really didn't want that. She wanted it to just sound like the truth."

In the end, Ferrera and Gerwig pulled off a pitch-perfect tightrope walk — the monologue is insightful yet blunt, and it's exactly what the third act of the movie needs to propel it forward. "Barbie" is in theaters now.