Mattel is unveiling a new doll inspired by Kate McKinnon’s role in the Barbie film.
The Weird Barbie — which can do crazy splits just like McKinnon’s character of the same name — is a $50 made-to-order doll now on pre-sale via Mattel Creations. The doll’s choppy hairstyle and markings on her face emulate a doll that’s been “played with too much.”
Greta Gerwig, who directed the movie and cowrote it with her partner, Noah Baumbach, explained the idea behind Weird Barbie during a July interview with Rolling Stone.
“We grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls older than me. So, I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies that had already gotten a haircut by the time I got them,” she said.
McKinnon, 39, knew the role was meant for her after Gerwig, 40, sent her the script. “The way the lines were written … I was like, ‘Oh, she just wants me to do a cameo as myself. I don’t have to stretch very far for this at all,” the Saturday Night Live alum told Sirius XM’s Jess Cagle in July.
Although the character Weird Barbie was impressively flexible, McKinnon revealed that she didn’t have to do any splits for the film. “That was a fake leg — and a heavy one,” she said during Entertainment Weekly’s July roundtable discussion with the Barbie cast.
Issa Rae, who played President Barbie in the fantasy comedy, chimed in to praise her costar for pulling off the stunt. “Every single person asked if that was your leg, and so the way you sold that, you should be proud,” she said.
In addition to Weird Barbie, Mattel has released a number of other dolls inspired by the highly anticipated film, which made a record-setting $162 million during its opening weekend in July, including of course ones modeled after the flick’s main Barbie and Ken, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
During a July New York Times interview with Gosling, 42, Robbie, 33, revealed that she “bribed” Gosling to do the film by promising to bring him presents every day. The actress kept her word and Gosling joked that the daily gift-giving began to feel “unsustainable.” Still, Robbie held fast. “I commit to a joke. I really do,” she told the outlet.
Once Gosling agreed to join the cast, he told daughters Esmeralda, 8, and Amada, 7 — he shares them with partner Eva Mendes — that he’d be playing Ken.
“They were confused,” the Gray Man actor said of his kids’ reaction, noting that they don’t actually call their Ken dolls by the name Ken. “One of them is named Darrell. And Darrell works at a grocery store. One of the Barbies’ names is Gym Class. And Gym Class met Darrell at the grocery store, but Gym Class, she’s focusing on herself right now. … [Ken] is such a nonpresence in their world.”
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