Ryan Gosling had to go deep to find his inner Ken.
The La La Land star has revealed he intially doubted he had the right “Ken-ergy” for the Barbie movie while speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
“I only knew Ken from afar. I didn’t know Ken from within, and if I’m being really honest, I doubted my Ken-ergy,” Ryan told the audience at a Warner Bros. Pictures presentation.
He credited director Greta Gerwig and lead doll Margot Robbie for helping him transform into Barbie’s boy-toy.
“I didn’t see it, but Margot and Greta, they conjured this out of me somehow,” he recalled.
“It was like I was living my life and then one day I was bleaching my hair, shaving my legs and wearing bespoke neon outfits and rollerblading down Venice Beach.”
“It came on like a light scarlet fever,” the star added. “Then I woke up one day and was like, ‘Why is there fake tanner in my sheets? What just happened?’”
Though his Mattel-inspired makeover was a bit drastic, Ryan said he was grateful to work with such a talented cast and crew.
“To work with this group — they’re all brilliant, and it was so exciting, and then to be conjured in such a way was really special,” he explained.
The first theatrical trailer for Barbie dropped in early April, revealing a whole collection of actors playing the titular toy and her companions.
Margot is joined by fellow Barbies Dua Lipa, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon and Hari Nef, while Ryan is just one Ken in a crew that includes Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir.
Watch the Barbie trailer below, ahead of its cinema release in June: