Michael Cera has revealed his “very last-mintute” casting in the Barbie movie almost didn’t happen because of a blunder by his agent.
Cera, 35, plays Mattel’s discontinued doll Allan in the Greta Gerwig directed blockbuster hit, which also stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Will Ferrell.
While Allan, who was marketed as Ken’s best friend, was dropped from production by the toy makers after two years in the 1960s due to low sales, Cera’s awkward and off-beat portrayal made him an instant fan-favourite on screen.
In a recent video interview with GQ, however, he revealed the jaw-dropping reason why he almost didn’t land the part.
“My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie, it’s the Barbie movie, Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months or something. So I told them you probably wouldn’t want to do it because you probably don’t want to go to London,’” Cera recalled.
“And I was like, ‘What?! What do you mean? Call them back,’” Cera continued. “I mean, he didn’t blow it or anything, but he’s like, ‘I managed their expectations that you might not want to do it.’ And I was like, ‘How could I not do it? I need to do it.’”
He then went on to tell how he connected with Gerwig via email, where he asked the Lady Bird director if he could do the part.
This then led to a Zoom call to discuss it further and Cera said: “It all just happened really fast from there.”
