Mark Ronson found out he just got his second Academy Award nomination on a morning flight, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Academy Award-winning songwriter and producer, Best Song in 2019 for Shallow from A Star is Born, spoke to THR about Barbie and its music, including Billie Eilish and Finneas' What Was I Made For, also a fellow nominee.
Barbie's 8 Oscar nods, yet none for Barbie herself
Barbie's music received two of the eight Oscar nods this year, but Barbie herself Margot Robbie and Barbie's helmer Greta Gerwig were stunningly absent from the list of nominations for Best Actress and Best Director, respectively.
Ronson spoke about how he wished the two women were among the honorees as well and if there's a possibility Ryan Gosling would perform I'm Just Ken at the Oscars.
“Of course, I wanted Greta and Margot to be recognized for their incredible work as well. I mean, obviously, Greta is for screenplay and Margot for producing the film. But their spirit is in every single piece of [the movie], there’s no way that Ryan, America, myself, there’s no way that we would be doing the work that we did without their contribution anyway,” he said about the snubs to the movie's star and director.
Mark Ronson and the process of writing with Kenergy
As to the process of writing the viral – and now Oscar-nominated song I'm Just Ken – Ronson was inspired by “these stories of these two people trying to find their way. One just happens to be a lot smarter than the other in the case of Barbie and Ken.”
And Gosling was game to to prove he's Kenough. He told the songwriter, “Yeah, I want to sing this in the film.”
“So, we went in the studio to record with Ryan, and he just brought the Ken to it. He brought the ‘Kenergy',” Ronson explained.
He called the three-time Academy Award-nominee (the third is for Barbie for
Ken and his Kenoughness has gone viral, especially on TikTok, and Ronson appreciated that “people really seemed to dig [Ken and the song] in the trailer, that was exciting.”
“And then when it went to TikTok, social media and people started making videos, ‘This is my husband, he's my Ken,' people dressing up in the minks — it was so exciting. It was like the song was obviously resonating on a sort of other level. I think it’s a lot to do with the message that’s in this film,” he related.
Ronson also liked how the movie didn't just speak to the women, but also the men, “It's definitely a women’s story that drives this film, but there's also this other parallel message of finding your worth and your value, and even if you feel kind of lonely and isolated and all these things, by the end, when it's like, ‘Put that manly hand in mine,' you found your people.”
He said that Gerwig's movie resonated with young men well especially in this Internet era where “there's sort of this crisis with boys… and how that can breed this insane isolation and loneliness and I think Greta's delivered this beautiful message in this film that counters that, and we just put it to music.”
Since Ronson also mentioned the 11-minute musical sequence that Gerwig made with his song, he was asked if there will be a performance on the Oscars stage.
“I haven't thought about any of that stuff, yet. I'm not sure. I mean, obviously, we would love more than anything for Ryan to perform the song. I mean, that's always just been the dream since sort of that first day in the studio, but all that stuff still seems like a while away,” he replied.
That only means they have “a while away” to practice.
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