Without the I'm Just Ken sequence in Barbie, we would've had a less entertaining time at the cinema. It's a simple fact for many moviegoers, and most of us are more than glad Ryan Gosling having a dance off with Simu Liu made it in.
But, according to the film's director, that scene nearly didn't make it in. Greta Gerwig spoke during the BFI London Film Festival recently (via Variety) where she recalled how she had to fight to keep the scene in.
"It just said in the script, 'And then it becomes a dream ballet and they work it out through dance,'" Gerwig said, speaking with Succession's Jesse Armstrong. "There was a big meeting that was like, 'Do you need this?' And I was like, 'Everything in me needs this.' They were like, 'What do you even mean? What is a dream ballet?' And I was like, 'A dream ballet? Where do I begin!'"
"Even though everything felt right to me and was giving me so much joy in the way we were doing it, it was also like, 'Oh no, this could be just terrible, but now I'm committed,'" she continued.
It does seem like this meeting took place before Gerwig had filmed the sequence, so it stands to reason why a studio might want to question a random dream sequence in the middle of a song. But, seeing it in the film, it's clear it worked out for the best.