It was important to Greta Gerwig that the Barbie movie took Ken seriously, she said at a recent Q&A attended by The A.V. Club, because his predicament is tragic: “I mean, not as tragic as Allan’s, but tragic nonetheless.” Forget Ken: Michael Cera’s Allan, the sole model of Ken’s buddy (who can fit into all of Ken’s clothes), was one of Barbie’s big scene stealers. The director loves Allan just as much as audiences did, praising Cera’s immediate “deep understanding” of the character: “I remember right after you read the script and then we Zoomed, you said, ‘I sort of hope, like, Allan’s just like behind people slightly out of focus,’” Gerwig said to Cera at the Q&A, “And I was like, ‘That’s Allan!’”
Cera’s performance continued to delight her when they got to set, especially in the “Dance The Night” sequence. “We decided Allan would know the entire Ken dance and be able to do it on his own on the side, just in case a Ken ever dropped out and needed him to do it. So he knew all the things,” Gerwig said, admitting she was “sent a video of you doing this dance and I still watch it when I get sad.” In fact, her editor Nick Houy made her a “supercut” of just Cera doing all the dance moves. “And any time we’d get stuck we were like, let’s just watch Allan.”
“I think I need to get that from you for my reel,” Cera joked, adding that the rehearsal process was “humbling” and “humiliating,” but “It’s a good place to start, It’s like, ‘ok, I’ve been debased, everybody knows I’m really valueless.’”
Cera almost missed out on the Barbie train, “because we were told, like, ‘Michael Cera will never do this,’” Gerwig recalled. “Someone was like, Michael Cera is allergic to success,” the actor quipped before sharing his first impression of the script, which was “a big surprise that keeps unfolding and keeps revealing itself.” After reading it, “I just felt frantic,” he said. “I was like, I just have to get in touch with Greta right away and beg to be in it. And I love the part. I just felt like, oh my God, please let me, let me in there.” Thankfully it all worked out, and the world was blessed with the one and only Allan—and if we’re really lucky, Gerwig will bless world again and #ReleaseTheAllanCut.