Life in plastic, it’s fantastic — just ask Michael Cera, costar of Greta Gerwig’s smash sensation “Barbie” movie. The unlikely cultural moment of the year, “Barbie” isn’t just a box office hit, it’s an aesthetic that has taken hold of the zeitgeist, from star Margot Robbie’s carefully crafted red carpet looks to the ongoing “Barbiecore” trend.
Naturally, there’s nothing more impressively “Barbiecore” than the immersive set of “Barbie” itself, a sprawling pink wonderland of Barbie Dreamhouses and so much beach.
“The first time I was on the set, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Cera said in an interview with British GQ. “It was stunning to see it,” he continued. “It was full of the most minute attention to detail. Every single tiny little element, even if it would never be seen on camera, was perfect and brought you into this world.”
“It didn’t feel like playtime,” he continued. “It felt like the biggest amount of money I’ve ever seen spent.”
In truth, while it would be a stretch to say “Barbie” has a modest budget with its $145 million production, the film was much cheaper than many of this summer’s franchise titles. For example, “Fast X’s” budget ballooned to $340 million and “Transformers: Rise of the Beast” clocked in around $217 million.
But Gerwig’s zany take on the iconic doll — and no doubt some big Mattel money mixed into the film’s culture-consuming marketing campaign — has trounced the Summer competition with a record-shattering $162 million opening weekend.
The wins keep coming, too. “Barbie” earned had highest-grossing Monday for any Warner Bros. film on its fourth day of release, earning another $26.1 million and bringing its domestic total to $188 million.
Cera also spoke a bit about his scene-stealing character Allan. The “Superbad” and “Scott Pilgrim” actor is a standout in the movie; both for his laugh-out-loud, sometimes “awww”-inducing melancholic performance, and for the unique nature of his character. Unlike most of his costars, Cera isn’t playing a Barbie or a Ken, but the short-shelved friend of Ken, Allan.
“The joke of my character is that he’s the only Allan in the world… Nobody was really interested in building out their Ken world that much,” Cera said. “It’s like, Ken is already just an accessory. We don’t need him to have an accessory. That’s kind of the tragic humor of this character. He’s sort of an anomaly in the world… He’s a very marginalized figure. He has no function. No place, really.”
Well, at least that used to be the case. With the discontinued dolls hiking up in price on resale sites, it looks like it’s an Allan World too.
