SPOILER alert:This story contains spoilers for “Barbie,” now playing in theaters nationwide.
Most moviegoers heading into “Barbie” were expecting Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling to have the film’s most iconic moments, but that title might actually belong to co-star America Ferrera. As Gloria, a Mattel executive who helps Barbie land back on her feet, the Emmy-winning actor gets one of the film’s centerpiece scenes: an impassioned monologue about the double standards women face on a daily basis.
“We shot it over two days,” Ferrera revealed in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “It’s one part of a much bigger scene with lots of characters in it. I had to do it many, many times for other people’s coverage and to get through the whole scene and over the course of two days.”
Ferrera praised director Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote “Barbie” with Noah Baumbach, for giving her “so much freedom” with the monologue. The speech even changed shape during filming, with Gerwig and Ferrera jointly adding a section where Gloria rails against women always having to appear grateful.
“There were moments in shooting the movie where Greta really had written something in a very specific way that she heard a very specific way in her head with particular cadence in a particular speed or a particular inflection,” Ferrera said. “I thought maybe this would be like that, but it was the opposite. She wanted me to completely make it my own and find it as we did it.”
Ferrera said it felt like she filmed 500 takes of the speech over the two days of filming, adding, “It was probably 30 to 50 full runs of it, top to bottom. By the end, [co-star Ariana Greenblatt] recited the monologue to me because she had memorized it because that’s how many times I had said it.”
Gloria’s monologue arrives at a point of crisis for Barbie, played by Robbie. She’s just returned to Barbieland, which has been overtaken by Ken and the patriarchy. Barbie no longer feels perfect, which prompts Gloria to slam a long list of double standards that women face.
“Neither one of us went into it feeling like it’s got to grow and crescendo to this big moment where you burst into tears or you’re laughing so hard you cry,” Ferrera said about perfecting the monologue with Gerwig. “There were no targets to hit. It was much more a moment-to-moment drop in. Truly, every take was very different. There were takes that leaned into anger. There were takes that leaned into laughter. It really did, over the course of filming, find a shape. It was about just staying as present in the moment and just seeing really where the words would take it.”
“Barbie” is now playing in theaters nationwide from Warner Bros.
