Our first introduction to Barbie was quite extreme. We received the script at the top of Mount Etna in Sicily during the winter of 2020, with two meters of snow exploding all over the place. We were filming out there, and that’s where the first phone call took place. It felt surreal—as if it were a scene out of Barbie.
It seems so long ago, but it’s interesting because the script was just words on paper when we first got it. It was almost like Greta Gerwig’s stream of consciousness, but it was incredible. We didn’t start pre-production until September 2021. So, between January and September, we had one to three Zoom meetings a week with Greta.
In those meetings, we had massive conversations about who Barbie actually is, what it means to be a toy, and how we bring a doll to life. Because Greta is such an amazing actress, she would often improvise acting out some of the scenes. She’d bring to life all of the characters as she was describing them, especially the Mattel executives.
Katie Spencer (L) pictured with Sarah Greenwood (R) on The Barbie Movie set. Warner Bros Pictures
We started by asking: Are the characters going to be in any way CGI? Are they going to be jointed? Are they going to know that they’re toys? Greta had a very clear vision in her mind, but we asked these questions to get it out of her mind and onto the screen.
Greta has this phrase that sums up the vision for Barbie: Authentic artificiality.
There’s something so pleasing about unwrapping your presents at Christmas when you’re a child, but sometimes it’s really disappointing because the beautiful packaging is all on the outside of the box. We wanted to capture the feeling of: This is exactly what I wanted.
That’s why we knew from the beginning that Barbie was not going to be a CGI-dominated movie. It was going to be tangible. People are going to be in real houses, The car is going to move on its own and the transitions are all on camera, which is music to most people’s ears.
It’s incredible how many people, not even knowing how the film industry works, have a sense of the reality of Barbie. It’s very tactile.
After we understood what Barbie Land would be and how the characters would behave, we began asking: How do we make a doll? Making a doll with someone like Margot Robbie is easy because she is an absolute doll. But it’s in the acting.
As Greta describes, for a few moments in the film, Barbie behaves like a toy. When Margot Robbie is on top of the roof, instead of walking down the stairs, she jumps off the roof and into her car. In the film, when Ryan Gosling is running down the beach and he hits the wave and he spins in the air, that’s what kids do with their toys.
Even the dialogue mirrors this. When Ken asks Barbie, “Can I stay over?” And she replies, “Why?” It’s a wonderful moment that reminds you that they’re all toys, which makes you believe in this total dream world.
We were in pre-production for the film for five months. We arrived at the studios in Shepperton, London, at 07:15 a.m in the morning, and the filming day was 12 hours. We shot for four to five months, with Christmas in the middle, so it was a long time.
We knew from the beginning that we were not going to adapt Margot or Ryan at all. We were never going to shrink them. We wanted to create their environment around them, which is why the sets were roughly 23 percent smaller than an average house. Playing with the scale like that and giving Margot a giant hairbrush was really effective.
There was something about the set and the props that the actors and the crew found very appealing. Everybody wanted to brush their teeth with the giant toothbrush and play on the set. Everybody wanted to touch the water in the pool that didn’t exist. It had an appealing, tactile quality about it.
We were in Watford, in the middle of winter, which is pretty grim. But when we walked onto the set of Barbie Land, the colors were just incredible. Because the set was so colorful and amazingly lit by Rodrigo Prieto, who is our Director of Photography (DOP), the quality of light and brightness were incredible and reviving. It was like a type of therapy.
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When it came to the set, we wanted a specific type of pink. Pink, believe it or not, is not a color that’s often used in great quantity. Of course, nobody thought to plan in advance but they couldn’t have done so anyway, because we had to decide on the perfect pink.
Our prop painters mixed up little brick-shaped samples until we found the perfect shade. We mixed a Roscoe Fluorescent pink, which almost looked black in the can because of how strong it was, with white paint until we got the perfect shade. We asked to order 200 liters and our head painter then phoned Rosco, a paint manufacturer who specializes in film painting and gels.
That’s when they said, “We don’t have 200 liters of pink pigment.” Of course, that was a huge issue because we only had less than three months to get the paint. So, we scrabbled around and phoned up all the film studios around the world collecting what there was.
There was a worldwide scramble. People were calling—if it had been in a film, it would have been split a screen Barbie moment of people saying, “Do you have any pink paint?” The Warner Bros executives were phoning Rosco’s executives. Everybody tried to find pink paint, and we were thankfully sorted, we managed to find it. When you find that perfect pink paint, you have to have it.
Everybody thought it was a joke. “There’s no pink paint.” But no, it was serious.
We feel that Barbie was treated with reverential fun. There was no formula because none of us had done anything like it before. It’s a film that you haven’t seen in Hollywood for quite a long time. It has a slapstick element to it.
Because Greta was the director and writer with her husband, Noah Baumbach, she allowed the actors to keep acting when they were improvising, it was so brilliant because you never got the same take.
Ryan Gosling, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie attend the press junket and photo call For “Barbie” at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on June 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Margot Robbie and her husband Tom Ackerley also produced the film. Margot is a very hands-on producer. Seeing her jump off the house that we built and stand up in the same shot and say “I’m fine” was incredible. To be able to jump off a house and keep acting is amazing.
She is absolutely brilliant, but she had to be virtually forced out of all the meetings because she was also playing the lead role of Barbie, she had to constantly change hats!
The great thing about Margot, Greta, Ryan and all the actors is that they had a ball. You’ve never seen so much fun and laughter on a set as you have on that.
Neither of us had ever owned a Barbie before. At first, in our heads, we were quite judgmental about Barbie. But we knew that with Greta and Margot being involved, there was more to it. Our expectations were challenged. I think there’s a confidence that comes from having done this film.
Retrospectively, there was a real bravery that came with us taking that leap of faith in ourselves and in Greta, and in everybody because we had no idea what this was going to be like. I don’t think anybody did. Nobody could have predicted this film. Luckily we were allowed to do it in the first place. I like pink now. So, our message would be to embrace your inner pinkness. Maybe that’s the thing.
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer are the set and production designers for the Barbie Movie, directed by Greta Gerwig.
All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
As told to Newsweek’s associate editor, Carine Harb.
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