The official trailer for “Barbie” begins with a now-iconic shot: Margot Robbie stepping out of her high-heel slippers to reveal her bare feet are still arched and ready to be slipped into whatever next shoe accessory awaits. For anyone wondering: Yes, those really are Margot Robbie’s arched feet.
As revealed in a new Time magazine cover story on the making of “Barbie”: “The shot took eight takes. [Margot Robbie] had to hold onto a bar to keep her feet flexed. And, yes, those are her feet. ‘I really don’t like it when someone else does my hands or feet in an insert shot,’ she says.”
Robbie also told Time that she would’ve turned down “Barbie” had Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s script not incorporated many different Barbie characters. Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Dua Lipa and more actors also play Barbie in the Warner Bros. tentpole.
“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,” Robbie said. “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 explained to Vogue last month that she also courted Gal Gadot to star as a Barbie in the movie since she feels like the Wonder Woman actor embodies “Barbie energy.”
What exactly is Barbie energy? “Gal Gadot is Barbie energy,” Robbie said. “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.”
In playing the main Barbie character herself, Robbie also had to sort through questions regarding beauty and sexiness. After all, Barbie is a children’s doll.
“I’m like, ‘Okay, she’s a doll. She’s a plastic doll. She doesn’t have organs. If she doesn’t have organs, she doesn’t have reproductive organs. If she doesn’t have reproductive organs, would she even feel sexual desire?’ No, I don’t think she could,” Robbie said. “She is sexualized. But she should never be sexy. People can project sex onto her. Yes, she can wear a short skirt, but because it’s fun and pink. Not because she wanted you to see her butt.”
“Barbie” opens in theaters nationwide July 21 from Warner Bros.