“There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed,” Margot Robbie said during a panel at a special SAG screening on Tuesday night.
Robbie, who both produced and starred in Barbie, was responding to the missed Oscar nominations for director Greta Gerwig and herself in the Lead Actress category—a situation that has sparked much online discourse and disappointment for Barbie fans.
“Obviously I think Greta should be nominated as a director, because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is,” Robbie said. “But it’s been an incredible year for all the films.”
Related Stories
Barbie is the only billion-dollar film solely directed by a woman, and it outstripped all other films at the box office last year, bringing home $1.4 billion worldwide. As Robbie said, the reaction to the film has become a kind of cultural phenomenon: “I just suspect it’s bigger than us. It’s bigger than this movie, it’s bigger than our industry.”
Watch on Deadline
Robbie also clearly pointed out that she is “beyond ecstatic that we’ve got eight Academy Award nominations, it’s so wild.” Those nominations include Best Picture, Supporting Actress for America Ferrera; Supporting Actor for Ryan Gosling, Costume Design, Production Design and Best Adapted Screenplay for Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. “Everyone getting the nods that they’ve had is just incredible, and the Best Picture nod,” Robbie said.
“We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact,” Robbie said. “And it’s already done that, and some, way more than we ever dreamed it would. And that is truly the biggest reward that could come out of all of this.”
Robbie had the SAG screening audience laughing as she described listening in movie theater bathrooms for audience reactions and then being in a pub in Scotland overhearing a group of men on a bachelor party trip discussing the film. “It was just truly fascinating,” she said. “There were people at the table who refused to see the Barbie movie. One guy was like, ‘Dude, it is a cultural moment, don’t you want to be a part of culture?’ And the other guy was like, ‘I’ll never see it,’ and by the end he did want to see it. It was a whole thing.”
Robbie recalled she couldn’t resist approaching the group to say hello. “It took a full minute for them to realize, and I was practically out the door. And then they were like, ‘Ohhhh!’ It was very funny.”
“People’s reactions to the movie have been the biggest reward of this entire experience, whether it’s having a moment like that, or whether it’s listening in the bathrooms, or whether it’s seeing what people are writing online, or even just seeing how much pink I can see in this room right now.”
“I’ve never been a part of something like this. Not like this. I’ve done comic book stuff and that gets a big reaction, but this felt very different. It still feels very different. And I can’t think of a time when a movie’s had this effect on culture. And it’s amazing to be in the eye of the storm.”
This Best Picture nomination is Robbie’s first as a producer—she acquired the rights to Mattel’s Barbie with her production company LuckyChap and shares the nomination with fellow producers David Heyman, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner.
I think people need to dial it down re BARBIE. Most of my friends who’ve seen it liked it, and thought the message and themes were topical and relevant (though hardly revolutionary). It was a well executed idea and should be recognized for that, but let’s see where it stands in 5, 10, 20 years before we start claiming it ‘shifted the culture’.
The decision to not nominate The Female Director, Actress hit Songwriter of this iconic film about WOMEN illuminates the point of how female achievement is flippantly underrated, discounted and downplayed. (Especially from deliberate and mature females).
Maybe people think – so she played a beautiful doll??….. isn’t that easy for women? Isn’t it what they do anyway? Is that really even acting?? (Trust me women are always acting. Margot Robbie had us believing in what she was projecting outwardly, in how her nascent feelings were creeping up into her consciousness and how her journey into self awareness, morality and mortality took us all on a ride.
As a Director Greata Gerwig tapped into the memories of small girls (now grown women) floating their Barbies down from the second floor to the kitchen for breakfast. There were so many visual set design, action sequence, facial expression, shoe problem, leg, arm and boob impossibilities as “inside” jokes that Greta shared to prompt out load Global laughter.
And Billie Eilish’s song??? I might be the only person on Earth whoheard the song before I saw the movie and did not realize it was from the movie for weeks. It was the most moving piece of music I’d ever experienced. It was so very Female – I mean born female and wondering what we’re worth if we do or don’t dress and look like we’re praised to be, what we’re raised to be and then what we’re destroyed for not being enough of. Every little girl exposed to Barbie knows the feeling of self objectification. Will we be pretty enough to grow up and live a life of happy willing objectification? Will we wander blindly on spindly heels in spangly costumes into situations where we are groped raped or abused? Will we blame ourselves for being too much of or not enough of?? This movie was so friggin deep.
As a Woman, Songwriter, Mother and Former Baby Girl I applaud the entire team for creatign Barbie the Movie.
Wasn’t the song you mentioned nominated for an. Oscar?? U mean I did a 30 second google check. Also- the movie was good but not to the level of outrage.
LOL! It’s a two hour commercial for Mattel, such art!
Tell me you haven’t seen BARBIE without actually writing “I haven’t seen BARBIE.”
Barbie who?
Overrated movie. Avatar, Avengers End Game, Titanic and some many other movies made more money than Barbie.
None of those movies are better than BARBIE and none of them had anything to say. None of them will have the lasting impact of BARBIE, either… save for maybe TITANIC.
It’s not too late to add the filmmakers to Mount Rushmore. Barbie could replace Old Hickory on the twenty dollar bill.