‘Barbie’ Music Producer Mark Ronson Says ‘I’m Just Ken’ Was Initially Meant to Be a Background Song

It may be hard to imagine Barbie without the climactic “I’m Just Ken” scene, but according to music producer Mark Ronson, the song initially had a much smaller role in the hit film.

“It went from a song that might be played somewhere in the movie to this song that they built this epic battle around,” Ronson, 48, said in a new behind-the-scenes featurette called “Musical Concoction,” released as Barbie hits streaming.

When director Greta Gerwig asked him to write a song for Ryan Gosling’s Ken, Ronson recalled, “I immediately knew what the song for Ken should be.”

Once he handed the director, 40, an initial version, “Greta said, ‘We love that song — actually, can you make it longer?’ ” He said.

“So we’re basically hitting 11 minutes just around Ken’s song,” Ronson added.

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Enter Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ryan Gosling and Ncuti Gatwa Barbie (2023).

Warner Bros

Watch Ryan Gosling rehearse his ‘I’m Just Ken’ musical number in ‘Barbie’ behind-the-scenes video

In the “I’m Just Ken” sequence, the Kens — led by Gosling and Simu Liu — face off on the beach, before the scene cuts to a dreamy ’80s dance sequence.

In the feature film, Gerwig said she was partly inspired by the “absurdity” of the fight “between toy soldiers and rats” in Nutcracker ballet, which she “loved” growing up.

Gosling, 42, compared the sequence to a “real world game of telephone”.

“It was distorted by the time it comes back to them, and they’re just doing their best, but that’s actually the worst,” he added.

Enter Ryan Gosling Barbie (2023).

Warner Bros

Greta Gerwig and the cast of ‘Barbie’ go behind the scenes of the movie costumes in a new video (exclusive)

Ronson previously said in an interview with vanity fair that when Gosling first heard the “I’m Just Ken” demo, he was such a big fan that he not only agreed to sing the song, but asked to perform it on screen.

While the producer was concerned about how Gerwig would react to the tune — he said he didn’t want her to think he was “trying to be funny” — she agreed with Gosling. In fact, she loved the ballad so much that she rewrote a key scene to ensure she could reproduce it in the film.

After Gosling recorded the vocals for the song, Ronson told the paper that he realized that the actor (whose musical resume includes his Oscar nomination La la country performance, an album with his rock duo Dead Man’s Bones and a stint as Mouseketeer) was a “vocal power”.

“He really got it [that] he had to walk this line of not being funny or a parody,” Ronson said. “But obviously the song is also funny sometimes. So he was really amazing, and when he really started hitting the high notes, I was like, ‘This guy is a vocal powerhouse!’ ”

Barbie is in theaters and available to stream now, and will appear in IMAX theaters for a one-week limited run beginning September 22nd.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education