How do you go about making a film about one of the world’s most iconic figures? Especially when they’re not even real… Read on for the story behind the smash hit movie.

The story of the Barbie movie begins with, fittingly enough, with Barbie herself… Margot Robbie. As producer, Robbie had bought the rights to a Barbie movie with the film studio Warner Bros., (who had already received much success and acclaim in the “films based on children’s toys” market with The Lego Movie and its sequels).

Robbie invited Oscar-nominated director Greta Gerwig to write and direct the project. Greta’s previous work, including the Academy Award nominated Lady Bird and 2019’s adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott classic Little Women, made it clear this wasn’t going to be a mere 90-minute toy commercial for the doll. Greta’s work is notably based on real, primarily female experiences, and this would be an opportunity for a subversive take on the often debated influence the doll has had on gender and social values.

Greta admitted some trepidation on adapting a film to fit what she describes as “an icon of the 20th Century”. When considering the offer, Greta reflected that “It felt complicated enough, sticky enough, strange enough, that maybe there could be something interesting there to be discovered […] I kind of had two thoughts: I love this and I can’t bear it if anyone else makes it. And: they’ll never let us make this movie.”

Indeed, once Greta and partner Noah Baumbach’s script had been written, getting Barbie’s parent company, Mattel, on board was going to be her biggest hurdle. After all, this is the company that took legal action against Europop band Aqua for their 1997 hit “Barbie Girl” on account of its less than complimentary critique of the brand. However, Greta did get the toy company onside, in part by writing them a “surreal” poem. While she hasn’t shared what the poem’s contents were, in an interview with The Guardian she mentioned it covered “The Lament of Job [which] shockingly does actually communicate some vibe of the movie.”

It may seem strange now, but originally Margot Robbie did not intend to star as the eponymous heroine in the film. Initially, the role was going to be given to comedian and actor Amy Schumer. Amy worked on the script for a time but left the project when she felt it no longer fit her vision for it. Anne Hathaway was also linked to the part, but that also fell through. It wasn’t until Greta Gerwig was signed on to direct that Robbie was convinced to star in the film herself.

And for every Barbie there is a Ken. Margot and Greta both lobbied for Ryan Gosling to join as Barbie’s plus one, but it took a touch of serendipity for him to make his decision final. In an interview with The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, Ryan tells the story that he finished the script and went for a walk to mull it over. While out, he saw a discarded Ken doll half buried in mud next to a squashed lemon. He took a photo of the doll and sent it to Greta, along with the message: “I shall be your Ken, for his story must be told.”

With the leads set, getting an enviable supporting cast on board was easy with America Ferrara, Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Ferrell, Issa Rae and many more all jumping on board. John Cena was even spontaneously offered a cameo role after he paid for Margot Robbie’s meal while production was taking place in London.

The movie was gathering so much pace that some actors planned appearances were either cut or had to be changed. Olivia Colman shot a scene, but it didn’t make it to the final cut. Margot Robbie was hoping Gal Gadot would appear in the film, but they couldn’t make the schedules work – nor could frequent Greta Gerwig collaborators Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan. Ben Affleck also had to drop out of a cameo role in the beach scene but had to drop out due to his work on the film Air.

And some icing on the cake… the elderly lady Barbie meets sitting on the bench in California is actually a cameo by Barbara Handler, daughter of Barbie creator Ruth Handler and the namesake for the Barbie doll brand.

The decision was made by Greta and team early on to not rely on CGI effects and instead utilise practical effects as much as possible. Even the iconic shot of Barbie stepping out of her heels to reveal her perpetually arched feet is done without digital assistance. So was it done via a body swap? No to that as well. In fact, Margot Robbie just needed to hold on to a bar off screen to keep her feet on perfect tip toes. Easy, right? Well… it took eight takes to get it right.

The set design for Barbie Land is a pastel wonderland. But obviously, if you’re going to pick out a colour set for Barbie, you’re going for pink. In fact, there was so much pink paint required for the set, the film industry’s main supplier for paint, Rosco, claim the production emptied their worldwide supply of fluorescent pink paint, causing an international shortage.

In fact, the “pinkness” of the production was taken very seriously, Margot Robbie attempted to infuse the cast and crew with a Barbie spirit by mandating “pink days” each week on set. Everyone had to dress in all pink or suffer a fine that would be donated to charity.

You might also notice a slight dissonance in scale when visiting Barbie Land. This is intentional, as the scale was always a little off when it came to Mattel’s Barbie and her near-infinite inventory of accessories and playsets. For example, Barbie’s dreamhouse was designed by set decorator Katie Spencer to be 23 per cent smaller than your average human being’s abode. If you watch the scenes in Barbie Land, you’ll see ceilings are pretty low and floorspace is quite limited. And obviously walls aren’t a thing there either – how would you get your hands in there?

Providing the fashion for the world’s most fashionable doll was costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who had collaborated with Greta previously on Little Women. Inspiration came directly from the Barbie doll line’s near-infinite range of iterations, with 1993’s “Western Stampin’” Barbie and 1994’s “Hot Skatin’” Barbie both featuring heavily in the film. As is with the dolls, the approach to dressing the characters was primarily practical, with Jacqueline saying, “The defining characteristic of what she wears is where she's going and what she's doing … about being completely dressed for your job or task."

Jacqueline also took inspiration from the early 1960s French Riveira and iconic stars like Brigitte Bardot, while Ken’s wardrobe was largely inspired by 1980s sportswear. While the majority of Barbie’s wardrobe was created by Jacqueline and her team, they didn’t have to look very far to fill in the gaps. Margot Robbie has been an ambassador for Chanel since 2018, so the fashion house was very happy to provide anything the production needed.

And Ken absolutely wears his own branded underwear – an idea that came from Ryan Gosling himself.

When Barbie was first announced, it was inevitable that there would be some eye rolling. After all, when a popular toy line usually comes to cinema screen, it normally amounts to an extended commercial for the toy in question. But the makers of Barbie had a different approach – they wanted to make something completely unexpected.

The film delves into the complex history of the Barbie doll itself. On the one hand, Barbie represents an independent woman, who can be anything she wants to be and is not tied to a domestic life as a wife and mother. However, Barbie’s critics have long denounced the doll as a misogynistic product that promotes the female ideal as white, slim, blonde, all-American, and incredibly affluent. (I mean, how does anyone even afford that dreamhouse?) Barbie’s creators Mattel have often not helped to disprove this, most notably in 1992 when they introduced “Teen Talk” Barbie, a talking doll who expounded profound words of wisdom like “Math class is tough!” (This doll appears as a cameo in the film played by Marisa Abela).

As such, the film is deliberately subversive when it comes to its inspiration, with the film’s trailer stating “If you love Barbie, this movie is for you. If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you!” (accompanied by a sample from Aqua’s 1997 hit “Barbie Girl”, which is itself a critique of the doll). While Barbie (and everyone in Barbie Land) begins the film living a perfect life, the drama of the story is injected when Barbie begins experiencing things from the real world – flat feet, cellulite, existential dread – that real women face every day of their lives. On top of that, Barbie must face the reality that the doll line was not the unilateral force for feminism that its creators purported it to be.

The #MeToo movement casts a long shadow over the course of the story too. When arriving in the real world, Barbie notices the attention she receives from men is aggressive in nature, while this is not the case for Ken. Meanwhile, Ken’s discovery of “The Patriarchy” allows him to reverse his lot in life as a characterless adjacent to Barbie, inspiring him to reverse the power balance in his and the other Ken’s favour – the Barbies reduced to agreeable, submissive roles happy to be mansplained to or played guitars at.

Barbie is very much a reckoning, or at least a coming to terms with, all the good and bad that the Barbie doll represents. She is both the dream, and the impossible expectation, that goes along with being a woman.