Barbie: The Three Actors That Narrowly Missed Out On Playing Kens

Contains spoilers for "Barbie"

It's likely not a huge surprise that, when it was announced that Oscar-nominated writer-director Greta Gerwig was making a "Barbie" movie, actors across Hollywood wanted to get involved right away. Vanity Fair spoke to two of the movie's casting directors, Lucy Bevan and Allison Jones, to dig deeper about how the candy-coated, fiercely feminist film managed to score its star-studded lineup, which is led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the lead Barbie and Ken. As it turns out, we missed out on three potential Kens — Bowen Yang, Dan Levy, and Ben Platt all wanted to play Kens, but couldn't make it work due to COVID-19 restrictions in place during filming.

While "Barbie" was in production, the entire cast had to commit to staying in London for the entirety of shoot, due to strict COVID-19 protocols — and Yang, Levy, and Platt couldn't make the commitment, for a variety of reasons. It's easy enough to guess why — Yang is a cast member on "Saturday Night Live," Dan Levy just briefly worked on "The Idol," and Platt is currently starring in "Parade" on Broadway as well as the new film "Theater Camp." Still, the casting directors said those actors were quite upset that they couldn't make it work. "They were, I'm not kidding, really bummed they couldn't do it," Jones told Vanity Fair.

According to the Vanity Fair piece, Ken wasn't the only part in "Barbie" being fought over in Hollywood. Incredibly, the role of Allan — "Ken's buddy" who, in doll form, fits into all of Ken's same clothes — was a hot ticket as well, and at first, Jonathan Groff, known for projects like "Mindhunter," "Looking," and "Frozen," really, really wanted to play the amorphous blob known as Allan.

Unfortunately for Groff, he suffered the same fate as Platt, Yang, and Levy. Jones isn't specific about whether or not Groff was simply auditioning himself for the part or actually in talks further down the line, but she does say that, eventually, Groff reached out and said he couldn't make London work. "Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, 'I can't believe I'm typing this, but I can't do Allan,'" she recalled.

The role of Allan ultimately went to Scott Pilgrim himself, Michael Cera, and with all due respect to Groff, Cera couldn't be more perfect in the role. Described by Vulture's Jen Chaney as "a vibe, if having no vibe counts as a vibe," Allan is just kind of... there, and as the movie's narrator Helen Mirren observes, there's only one of him. (Allan does not know why that is.) Yes, he gets his own fight setpiece as the film draws towards its climax, but Allan's job is simply to be present and be grateful to be even slightly included. Cera, a master of quiet deadpan, completely nails the part.

So how did Bevan and Jones settle on the Kens and Barbies who ended up in the movie, which included names like Hari Nef, Issa Rae, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Emma Mackey, and more? When it came to the Kens, Bevan said, "They were definitely really different, but they had to feel like a cohesive group. You wanted to cast people who were really going to get on and be great and enjoy it." Based on the end result, it seems like that's exactly what happened; "Barbie" is a film that, even in its most emotional moments, overflows with uninhibited joy.

Unsurprisingly, Gerwig was also closely involved in casting; Bevan says she showed the casting directors old illustrations of classic Barbie and Ken dolls to narrow down a certain look, but the personality was still paramount. "She really wanted to get to know them as people," Bevan said. "That was very important to her. On the key Barbie and Ken roles, she got a very good idea of what an actor was like from talking to them."

Here's the good news: Marvel's Simu Liu really, really wanted a part in the movie, and he ended up playing the main nemesis and eventual ally to Gosling's main Ken. "Simu Liu was dying to be a Ken, God bless him," Jones recalled.

"Barbie" is in theaters now.