How Ryan Gosling became Kenough for Ken

Academy Award-nominee Ryan Gosling spoke to Variety about the process of finding the Kenergy in himself to be Kenough to play Ken.

Gosling has talked about the story of how he ended finding his daughters' Ken dolls naked and face down in the dirt a lot. This time, there's a different ending. He found Ken (the doll) dressed. Well, sort of dressed.

“He was wearing a tuxedo, albeit a sleeveless one,” the actor said.

Was it a sartorial choice?

“And I asked my daughters, ‘What happened?' And they said, ‘Oh, he died of armpit arthritis. Ken's dead!” Gosling related the story.

He's relieved that “at least he's face up and wearing clothes.”

And just because I was curious, armpit arthritis CAN be a thing. At least according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. Sort of. Pain in the armpit can be a sign of rheumatoid arthritis. Now you know.

Both Barbie star Margot Robbie and co-writer and director Greta Gerwig sing his praises about being the kind of guy who would know how to pull off a funny and serious Ken, and make the audience believe it.

The Academy Awards finds Ryan Gosling Kenough 

The Academy Award voters definitely did since Gosling earned his third nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role as Ken. His nomination is one of eight the movie received, but noticeably absent are those for Robbie for best actress and Gerwig for best director.

Gosling has made a public statement regarding his disappointment over the snubs for his co-star and his director.

“Look, I heavily edited that statement,” he told Variety.

“I think if I say any more about it, I'm going to basically put on a mink and start challenging people to a beach-off on Malibu Beach,” Gosling added.

That's the Kenergy he brought to the role. When the actor agreed to play Ken, he went to great lengths to figure out how to play a historically ignored toy and bring him to life.

“It was like a high-wire act – in tiny shorts and no shirt – with no net,” Gosling noted.

He struggled over trying to find the Ken-ness of Ken. While preparing for the character, he would go home and ask, “What am I doing?”

The answer came from his wife, actress Eva Mendes: “Just make it about Barbie.”

“And so every take became an opportunity to get Barbie to notice me,” he said.

However, he initially turned down the role.

“There were actual reasons why I couldn't do the film. Schedule things. Life things,” Gosling said.

But Gerwig was persistent. She didn't have any backup actor. It was Gosling or no one else. In fact, she wrote his name on the script: Ken Ryan Gosling. When he did accept the role, he threw himself into it, mink coat and all. It was a nod to his and Gerwig's mutual love of Sylvester Stallone in the '80s.

“We found out that Stallone wore a lot of minks. As long as Ken was wearing it, he was the Ken with the mink – and that separated him from the other Kens,” he said.

And then moved a decade later to the 1992 movie Single White Female, specifically Jennifer Jason Leigh's look.

“I thought, ‘Ken is “Single White Female”-ing Barbie.' So he would try to dye his hair, even though he can't dye his hair,” Gosling shared.

Gosling is Just Ken

He ended up bleaching his hair, but made sure it looked like the off-version of Barbie's. So now he had the look and the character down. But what about the singing?

The actor impressed Mark Ronson, who wrote I'm Just Ken. The songwriter/producer said that he was surprised at how Gosling looked like he was channeling the Great Caruso when he recorded the song – “his entire body five feet off the mic.”

The song is one of the two Barbie tunes nominated for an Oscar. However, there's one burning question that doesn't have an answer yet: Will Gosling perform I'm Just Ken at the Oscars?

He replied, “I still have not been asked. It might be too much of a risk to have me do it. I don't know how that would work. But I'm open to it.”

The actor asked if it's possible for the performance to be pared down. Ramin Setoodeh of Variety told him it couldn't; that it had to be the extravaganza that it was in the movie.

“OK. It's anthemic. So we'll need a budget,” Gosling noted.

As of this writing, there's no word yet on whether Oscar nominee Ken will be performing on stage. Just in case he's going through some kind of impostor syndrome, with one voice we say, “You're Kenough.”