Before the Oscar nomination, before the sweatshirts and the mojo dojo casa house, it took some convincing to get Ryan Gosling to say "I'm Just Ken."
The 43-year-old star of last year's box office juggernaut "Barbie" was hesitant to take on the role. In a recent profile in Variety, Gosling said he passed on the film when it was brought to him.
"There were actual reasons why I couldn't do the film," he said. "Schedule things. Life things. And I would call months later to my agents or something and say, 'Hey, who did they get to play Ken?' And they would say, 'Greta says it's you.'"
Indeed, director Greta Gerwig put Gosling's name in the script as she was writing it, determined that he was the perfect actor for the job. Margot Robbie, who in addition to playing the titular Barbie also produced the film, pulled out all the stops to land her perfect co-star.
"Greta and I are both extremely determined and persistent people, otherwise this movie never would have happened," she said. "Every time he's like, 'I'm not doing this,' we were like, 'We are doing it, and it's going to be fun.'"
On top of a reported salary of $12.5 million, it was an out-of-the-box offer from Robbie that put Gosling over the edge.
"I said, 'I'll buy you a present every day if you come and do this movie,'" Robbie told the magazine. "And so I did. I bought him a present every day, and I'd leave it in his trailer, wrapped in pink and a bow tie, and it said, 'To Ken.'"
Though the presents tended to be small things like a book about horses or a puka shell necklace, they paid off in spades.
Gosling's performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination, "Barbie" was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture. The film also raked in more than $1.4 billion at the box office.
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