In Barbie, Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie lives in Barbieland along with the other Barbie’s and they each have their own, fantastic Dreamhouses, but those aren’t the only structures in the pink-hued world. Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie also has her own home — a “Weird House” — that, as was glimpsed in the movie’s teasers and trailers, looks quite different from those pink and perfect Dreamhouses. As it turns out, the Weird House was not only a favorite of the film’s production designer, Sarah Greenwood, but it also had a very interesting inspiration: the house from Psycho.
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“One of my early references is that you go up the stairs, and there’s the Psycho house, and we brought in other elements,” Greenwood told Variety. “Its design was deliberately skewed with everything pushed out of shape and out of order.”
Making The Barbie Dreamhouse Sets for the Movie Caused an International Pink Paint Shortage
According to Barbie movie director Greta Gerwig, the set for the film’s Barbie Land is so specifically pink with the creation of the Dreamhouses for the movie that it quite literally led to a shortage of a specific shade of pink.
“The world ran out of pink” Gerwig told Architectural Digest.
“Maintaining the ‘kid-ness’ was paramount,” Gerwig shared. “I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much.” In other words, she continues, she didn’t want to “forget what made me love Barbie when I was a little girl.”
“I wanted to capture what was so ridiculously fun about the Dreamhouses,” continued Gerwig. “…Why walk down stairs when you can slide into your pool? Why trudge upstairs when you take an elevator that matches your dress?”
Kate McKinnon Had Praise For the Technical Artists Working On Barbie
Speaking with ComicBook.com, McKinnon joked that the world created by Barbie‘s artisans was one that she didn’t want to leave when she got done with work at the end of the day.
McKinnon plays a Barbie who…well, she’s a little bit of the wise elder on the mountaintop. With bizarre makeup reminiscent of a doll whose face has been scribbled on and hair that reminded fans of Cynthia, the mangled Barbie-style doll from Rugrats, McKinnon’s Barbie sticks out in a crowd, and her big scene was used in most of the movie’s trailers and promos as a result.
“Everyone who worked in the production — artists, true, sculptors, artists, designers — this movie is a canvas for the art of so many incredible people,” McKinnon told ComicBook.com’s Jamie Jirak. “Just getting to wear and walk around their art was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the greatest, and I don’t want to go home.’”
In Barbie, to live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken. From Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig comes Barbie, which hit theaters on July 21st. Barbie stars Oscar-nominees Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, alongside America Ferrera , Kate McKinnon , Michael Cera , Ariana Greenblatt , Issa Rae , Rhea Perlman , and Will Ferrell. The film also stars Ana Cruz Kayne, Emma Mackey , Hari Nef , Alexandra Shipp , Kingsley Ben-Adir , Simu Liu , Ncuti Gatwa , Scott Evans , Jamie Demetriou , Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya , Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Dua Lipa and Oscar-winner Helen Mirren . Gerwig directed Barbie from a screenplay by Gerwig & Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach , based on Barbie by Mattel .
Barbie is in theaters now.
