While she’s still comprehending the impact of her now-beloved “Barbie” speech on the imbalance between men and women, America Ferrera admitted on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” that she didn’t really “memorize the words” to the point of perfection before filming.
“Instead of memorizing words, I sort of, like, memorize the ideas,” she said.
There’s no doubt that Ferrera’s “Barbie” speech about the hardships women face and still endure resonated with little girls and women around the world who watched the film. As much as the movie has been the talk of the town in Hollywood, so has that impactful scene, which took two days to shoot.
“I think that’s one of those moments in movie history that people are always going to remember that speech. Are you aware of that?” Kimmel asked the Oscar-nominated supporting actress Tuesdsay.
“People have said that to me, and it’s hard to really comprehend,” Ferrera admitted.
While she’s previously said that filming the speech took her about “30 t0 50 full runs” of the lines from top to bottom,” Ferrera told Kimmel she didn’t focus on memorizing it exactly as it was written in the script.
“How long does it take to get that in your head, to really memorize that?” Kimmel asked.
“I don’t like to memorize lines like that because then I get stuck saying them a certain way over and over again instead of, like, kind of discovering new things with every take,” Ferrera explained. “So instead of memorizing words, I sort of, like, memorize the ideas. Like, does that make any sense?”
When asked if she could still recall the speech, Ferrera admitted that she’d be a little rusty.
“No. I could say, like, some of it, but I don’t know word for word,” she told Kimmel. “But I could say most of it.”
Like the movie, Ferrera has been praised for her work in the film, as she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress alongside her costar Ryan Gosling, who also nabbed an Oscar nomination for his work as a supporting role.
The movie, which was cowritten and directed by Greta Gerwig, hit theaters to record numbers in July 2023 and is nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture.
Watch Ferrera’s full interview with Kimmel in the video above.
