Gal Gadot Addresses Margot Robbie Wanting Her to Play Barbie

It’s exhausting to think about anybody else starring within the titular position of Barbie — however Margot Robbie initially thought Gal Gadot was the lady for the job. 

“I adore Margot,” Gadot, 38, advised Flaunt journal in an interview printed on Friday, August 11, about being Robbie’s best choice for the Barbie film. “Margot is one of those women who you just want to be friends with. She brings so much to the table. I would love to do anything with Margot and was very touched [by her comments]. She warmed my heart with everything that she said about me. I’m super excited for them, and I’m so excited for Barbie.”

While Gadot couldn’t star as Barbiel herself, her persona ended up being the blueprint for each the casting administrators and Robbie, 33, whereas trying to find the proper actors to play every doll in BarbieLand. 

“Gal Gadot is Barbie energy,” Robbie advised Vogue in May. “Because Gal Gadot is so impossibly beautiful, but you don’t hate her for being that beautiful because she’s so genuinely sincere, and she’s so enthusiastically kind, that it’s almost dorky. It’s like right before being a dork.”

While Robbie — who additionally serves as govt producer on the movie — ultimately went on to play the titular position, she didn’t even think about casting herself within the half till director Greta Gerwig joined the mission. (Gerwig, 40, additionally cowrote the script with companion Noah Baumbach.)

“I said to her when she said, ‘Yes, I’ll come on board,’ ‘I don’t have to be in the movie,’” Robbie advised Teen Vogue in July. “I’m very passionate about making this as a producer, but I don’t have to play Barbie or be in the movie in any capacity, I’m happy just to produce.”

Greta, nonetheless, already had a imaginative and prescient of Robbie donning the signature pink heels. “She was like, ‘No, I really wanna write this for you. And she wrote me an amazing part, so I’m very grateful,” Robbie recalled. 

Along with Robbie, there was one other position pre-cast in Gerwig’s thoughts — Ryan Gosling as Ken.

“She wrote him into the script as well. It always said in the script: ‘Barbie, Margot’ and ‘Ken, Ryan Gosling,’” Robbie defined, including that the 2 ladies “wouldn’t take no for an answer” from Gosling, 42. “We’re like, ‘Ryan, you have to come do it. It’s on the page, you have to,’” she quipped. 

Still, Robbie had one large ask earlier than stepping on set.  

“If [Mattel] hadn’t made that change to have a multiplicity of Barbies, I don’t think I would have wanted to attempt to make a Barbie film,” she mentioned throughout an interview with TIME journal in June. “I don’t think you should say, ‘This is the one version of what Barbie is, and that’s what women should aspire to be and look like and act like.’”

Robbie headlines the movie because the “stereotypical” blonde, pink-clad Barbie most acquainted to followers, however the solid consists of varied different stars taking part in completely different variations of Barbie. Issa Rae, for instance, portrays President Barbie,  whereas Alexandra Shipp is Writer Barbie and Hari Nef is Doctor Barbie. 

“My worry was that it was going to feel too white feminist-y, but I think that it’s self-aware,” Rae, 38, advised TIME of the movie. “Barbie Land is perfect, right? It represents perfection. So if perfection is just a bunch of white Barbies, I don’t know that anybody can get on board with that.”