Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet were going to have cameos in Barbie, and the details make Us even sadder that it didn’t happen.
“I don’t know what [Timothée] was going to be, but I was definitely going to be a Weird Barbie,” Ronan, 29, told Variety in a Saturday, January 20, interview at Sundance Film Festival. “I don’t know how to take that. I mean, I would have been with Kate McKinnon, so that would have been nice. … I had a scene but didn’t ever get to do it, and it wasn’t in the movie.”
She continued, “I can’t even remember now, but it was weird. I think I’d be the strange girl who talked to herself and always had her pet dog with her and always talked to the dog and wouldn’t look at anyone.”
Chalamet, 28, and Ronan both costarred in director Greta Gerwig‘s Oscar-nominated films Lady Bird and Little Women. She was hoping to reunite with the duo for the third time.
“I tried to get them both in it. I really did and they both couldn’t do,” Gerwig, 40, told Hollywood First Look in July. “It was, like, a scheduling thing. She was actually producing, so that was great, good on her. But I tried to get them. It makes me it makes me feel like I’m without my — they feel like my children.”
The Wonka star opened up about his missed cameo opportunity last month while on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“There was an idea for Saoirse Ronan and I to do a cameo in it,” Chalamet explained. “I don’t know what the cameo would’ve been. I think it would’ve been one of the rejected Kens or Barbies. Not Alan! But something. Maybe there was a reject French one along the way.”
While filming a scene wasn’t possible, he got to briefly visit Gerwig on the set of Barbie. “When I finished Wonka, they were — the Barbie set had been built,” he shared, noting he went from one fantastical land to another.
They certainly weren’t the only stars who couldn’t make it to set. Barbie casting director Allison Jones told Vanity Fair last year that Bowen Yang, Dan Levy and Ben Platt all had to turn down roles as Kens due to logistics. “They were — I’m not kidding — really bummed they couldn’t do it,” Jones said.
Meanwhile, Allan was almost played by Jonathan Groff rather than Michael Cera. “Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I can’t do Allan,’” Jones added.
Luckily, with a cast that included Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera and Will Ferrell, Barbie had no shortage of stars.