BARBIE Star Ryan Gosling for GQ Magazine

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BARBIE star Ryan Gosling covers the latest issue of GQ magazine photographed by Gregory Harris and styled by George Cortina.

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And as for Ken, the no-thoughts-just-vibes character he plays in the film: “There’s something about this Ken that really, I think, relates to that version of myself. Just, like, the guy that was putting on Hammer pants and dancing at the mall and smelling like Drakkar Noir and Aqua Net-ing bangs. I owe that kid a lot. I feel like I was very quick to distance myself from him when I started making more serious films. But the reality is that, like, he’s the reason I have everything I have.”

After a Barbie trailer was released, fans on social media began debating whether or not Gosling was, in fact, too weathered and grown up now to play Ken, a debate that, in time, made its way onto the pages of the New York Post (“Gen Z ‘Barbie’ Fans Slammed for Calling Ryan Gosling Too ‘Old’ to Play Ken”) and a number of other tabloids. Gosling’s response to this is, at least initially, diplomatic and a little amused: “I would say, you know, if people don’t want to play with my Ken, there are many other Kens to play with.”

“It is funny,” he says, “this kind of clutching-your-pearls idea of, like, #notmyken. Like you ever thought about Ken before this?” As he said earlier, this is a guy whose job is beach.

“And everyone was fine with that, for him to have a job that is nothing. But 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.”

A version of this story originally appeared in the June/July 2023 isue of GQ with the title “Ryan Gosling Goes Hollywood.”

[Photo Credit: Gregory Harris/GQ]

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