The names Margot Robbie and Barbie are inextricably linked at this point, but the actress had one big ask before she agreed to play the titular doll in Greta Gerwig‘s upcoming movie.
The I, Tonya star, 32, revealed that she only wanted to play the iconic toy if Mattel promised that she wouldn’t be the only Barbie in the movie. “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,” she said in a TIME magazine cover story published on Tuesday, June 27. “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.’”
While Robbie headlines the film as the blonde, pink-clad Barbie most familiar to fans, the cast includes numerous other stars playing other versions of Barbie. Issa Rae, for example, appears as President Barbie, while Hari Nef is Doctor Barbie and Alexandra Shipp is Writer Barbie.
“My worry was that it was going to feel too white feminist-y, but I think that it’s self-aware,” Rae, 38, told TIME of the movie. “Barbie Land is perfect, right? It represents perfection. So if perfection is just a bunch of white Barbies, I don’t know that anybody can get on board with that.”
Years before Robbie joined the project in 2019, Amy Schumer was in negotiations to play the title role, but she exited the movie in 2017, citing scheduling conflicts. Earlier this month, however, the comedian, 42, admitted that she left Barbie because she didn’t like how it was shaping up.
“I can’t wait to see the movie, it looks awesome,” Schumer said during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “I think we said it was scheduling conflicts, that’s what we said. But yeah, it really was just creative differences. But, you know, there’s a new team behind it, and it looks like it’s very feminist and cool, so I will be seeing the movie.”
When host Andy Cohen asked whether Schumer’s version didn’t “feel feminist and cool,” she replied, “Yeah! Yeah.”
Last year, Schumer said she realized the project wasn’t going to work for her when Sony sent her a pair of Manolo Blahnik heels to celebrate her involvement. (The movie is now being distributed by Warner Bros.)
“The idea that that’s just what every woman must want, right there, I should have gone, ‘You’ve got the wrong gal,'” Schumer told The Hollywood Reporter in March 2022. “They definitely didn’t want to do it the way I wanted to do it, the only way I was interested in doing it.”
Barbie hits theaters on Friday, July 21.
