Greta Gerwig Explains Why She Had to Cut Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet Cameos From Barbie

While the Barbie movie will feature plenty of famous faces and some great cameo appearances, there are two just didn’t work out — Saoirse Ronan and Timothee Chalamet. The two actors appeared in both of director Greta Gerwig’s previous solo directorial features Lady Bird and Little Women and now, Gerwig is opening up about how not having the actors appear felt like doing something without her children.

“It was always going to have to be like a sort of smaller thing because she was actually producing at the time, which I am so proud of her for,” Gerwig said of Ronan, who had previously confirmed that she had tried and failed to film a cameo for the film (via Variety). “And of course, it’s brilliant. But it was going to be a specialty cameo. I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy. Both of them couldn’t do it and I was so annoyed. But I love them so much. But it felt like doing something without my children. I mean, I’m not their mom, but I sort of feel like their mom.”

Ronan had previously revealed that she would have had a small role as another Barbie in the film but was unable to make it work due to producing The Outrun while Barbie was filming.

“I was supposed to do a cameo because I live in London and they were [filming] there,” Ronan said last year. “There was a whole character I was going to play — another Barbie. I was gutted I couldn’t do it.”

Margot Robbie Personally Got Another Major Barbie Movie Cameo

While Chalamet and Ronan won’t be appearing for cameos in the Barbie movie, John Cena is. The Peacemaker star will be appearing as Merman Ken in the film and it turns out, Barbie star Margot Robbie is responsible for it.

“While we were shooting in London, I ran into him at a restaurant. We had worked together before, actually I ran into him because I went to pay the bill and they were like, ‘John Cena already took care of it.’ I was like, ‘What? Where is he, he’s hard to hide,’” Robbie recalled. “I found him and was like, ‘What are you doing here?’, he was shooting at [the place we were shooting Barbie]. I was like, ‘Do you want to come be a merman in Barbie?’, and he was like ‘Yeah.’ Surely he’s not going to agree to it just like that, and he did. He’s so awesome like that.”

Cena and Robbie worked together on 2021’s The Suicide Squad, with Cena portraying Peacemaker alongside Robbie’s Harley Quinn. The two have stayed friends since.

Barbie Also Almost Included a Joke About Two of the Barbies Looking Alike

Robbie also revealed that the film almost included a joke about how one of the other Barbies in the movie, Emma Mackey, and Robbie look alike since the internet frequently comments about their similar appearances but the joke ended up not quite working out.

“I’ve been getting told for years that I look like the girl from Sex Education, who is Emma Mackey,” Robbie explains. “And she plays one of the Barbies in the movie because Greta and I thought it would be funny. We were going to do like, this whole joke about us looking similar… and then once we got all dressed up as our Barbies, we were kind of like, ‘We don’t actually look that similar.’ Like when she’s got her brown hair, and I’ve got my blonde hair, we don’t look that similar. So, we didn’t put that joke in the movie.”

Robbie added, “But, when people come up and say, ‘I loved you in Sex Education,’ I just say, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’”

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 hits 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 opens in theaters July 21st.