Ryan Gosling is ready to take over the movie theaters and your music playlists. A video featuring Ryan singing the original song “I’m Just Ken” in the Barbie movie dropped on July 10, and it just further proves that Ryan was born to play Ken. Is there anything this man can’t do?
Heard everyone was feelin’ the Ken-rgy ✨#BarbieTheMovie – only in theaters July 21. Tickets on sale now! pic.twitter.com/uOH6dBUhN7
— Barbie Movie (@barbiethemovie) July 10, 2023
As Ken, Ryan sings about always being #2 to Barbie. He admits that “anywhere else I’d be a 10,” but in Barbieland… he’s just Ken. “I’m just Ken. Where I see love, she sees a friend,” Ken croons. Ken wants Barbie to see him for who he truly is — the “man behind the 10.”
Mark Ronson, the Barbie soundtrack producer, revealed that Ryan recorded “I’m Just Ken” in only a few hours. “It was so crazy,” Mark told Variety. “[Ryan Gosling is] a huge star of this movie and only has three hours on a Tuesday afternoon to cut the vocals. He just went in and as he started to get warmed up I was like, ‘This guy is going to murder this song!’ Of course he would.”
Ryan, along with the rest of cast, celebrated the film at the Barbie world premiere in Los Angeles on July 9. The La La Land actor looked handsome in a pink suit and wore an “E” chain necklace in honor of his longtime partner Eva Mendes. Ryan’s co-star and Barbie herself, Margot Robbie, rocked a black strapless dress inspired by the 1960 “Solo in the Spotlight” Barbie doll.
Throughout the Barbie press tour, Ryan has been exuding so much Ken-rgy. After some haters thought Ryan was “too old” to play Ken, Ryan had the perfect (and most Ken-like) response. “I would say, you know, if people don’t want to play with my Ken, there are many other Kens to play with,” Ryan told GQ. “It is funny, this kind of clutching-your-pearls idea of, like, #notmyken. Like you ever thought about Ken before this?…suddenly, it’s like, ‘No, we’ve cared about Ken this whole time.’ No, you didn’t. You never did. You never cared. Barbie never fucked with Ken. That’s the point. If you ever really cared about Ken, you would know that nobody cared about Ken. So your hypocrisy is exposed. This is why his story must be told.” Barbie will be released in theaters on July 21.