Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Barbie movie!

Summary

  • Margot Robbie's role as Barbie was foreshadowed years before the movie was announced with a scene from the 2019 drama Bombshell.
  • Robbie's performance in the lesser-known film Bombshell relates to the themes explored in Barbie, highlighting issues of women's place in the workforce and the judgment they face compared to men.
  • Robbie was the best choice to play Barbie because not only does she look and sound like Barbie, but she can convey the complexity of a doll trying to discover her humanity while confronting the paradoxical existence women face in the Real World with empathy.

At this point, it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role of Barbie than Margot Robbie, but the part was actually foreshadowed 4 years before Barbie came out. Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, and Robbie have been developing Barbie together ever since 2018 when Sony lost the rights to make a movie about Mattel's iconic doll, and they were transferred to Warner Bros. Robbie wasn't the first actress attached to the part, but she'd already made a name for herself in films like The Wolf of Wall Street and had portrayed a beloved franchise character Harley Quinn in both Suicide Squad movies and a standalone film.

While she's been in plenty of high-profile awards films and crowd-pleasing blockbusters, some of Margot Robbie's best films have been small character studies and ensemble dramas. One of these lesser-known films is Bombshell, a 2019 drama based on the true story of a Fox News scandal concerning three headstrong Fox employees who exposed Fox News chairman Roger Ailes' sexual harassment in the workplace. The film features an unexpected reference to Barbie that makes the messages in Gerwig's film all the more important, and Robbie the perfect Barbie to deliver them.

Margot Robbie Was Called "Anchor Barbie" In 2019's Bombshell

Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon in Bombshell.

There are a few special connections that Bombshell shares with the Barbie movie. First, Robbie's costar is Kate McKinnon, who plays her close friend and fellow Fox News employee Jess Carr, and second, Carr calls Robbie's character Kayla Pospisil "Anchor Barbie" after she gets a glamorous makeover for her first on-screen news appearance. McKinnon has a role in Barbie as Barbie's spirit guide Weird Barbie, who shows her how to travel between Barbieland and the Real World on a journey of self-discovery.

Bombshell, like Barbie, confronts issues surrounding women's place in the workforce, particularly how their work ethic is judged compared to their male counterparts, and their personhood evaluated based on superficial expectations. John Lithgow's Robert Ailes uses the court of public opinion to try to belittle their professional integrity by turning them into ambitious, power-hungry harpies intent on ruining a good man for their own selfish gains. As they navigate a quagmire of institutionalized and systemic sexism, they expose their work environment for the toxic place that it is.

Why Margot Robbie Was The Best Choice To Play Barbie

Margot Robbie dancing in Barbie with other Barbie's

2 actresses almost played Barbie before Margot Robbie but in the end, she was the perfect choice for the part. Though she might seem mired in superficiality, Barbie is an incredibly complex character that shows Robbie's range as an actress as she embodies a toy in search of its humanity. The part involves confronting uncomfortable truths about being a woman in the Real World that Barbie, coming from her female-empowered utopia, has a hard time reconciling with her limited capacity to understand what it means to be human.

Like Barbie, Robbie also produced Bombshell, which demonstrates how much she believes in films that make important themes like sexism, toxic masculinity, feminism, and gender equality central to their narratives. As a Barbie producer with quantifiable star power, Robbie could also push for an inclusive and diverse Barbie cast. And finally, it wasn't enough for Robbie to look and act like Barbie - she had to represent what Barbie has meant to fans ever since she was invented in 1959, from being a symbol of self-actualization and inspiration to one of impossible beauty standards.