Actress and star of the live-action film Barbie, Margot Robbie, revealed in a recent interview that director Greta Gerwig wanted her character to embark on a “classic hero journey,” similar to the legendary figures of the past, including Buddha.
For context, the highly anticipated project follows Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) as they attempt to discover the meaning of happiness in the real world after the well-known figurine was exiled from Barbieland due to her imperfect features.
Barbie also stars Helen Mirren, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Emma Mackey, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Alexandra Shipp, Jon Cena, Nicola Coughlan, Kate McKinnon, and many more. While promoting the movie, Robbie told Comic Book about the early stages of creating Barbie and why the character’s transformative journey was compared to Buddha.
National Geographic Society reports that Siddhartha Gautama, also referred to as Buddha, was a spiritual leader who reached the highest enlightenment level by renouncing his wealth in search of life’s meaning by “meditating and traveling.” After achieving his goal, Gautama began preaching and founded Buddhism “around the 5th century B.C.E.” in South Asia. Over the years, Buddhism has been practiced in other regions in Asia and worldwide.
During the discussion, Robbie shared that in the early production phase for Barbie, Greta approached her and stated that the character’s mission would be more than just the typical storyline, as the figurine experienced real-life issues while finding her life’s purpose. The 33-year-old said as she shared her initial thoughts about Greta’s vision for Barbie,
“It was very clear. Greta said right from one of our first conversations, she was like, ‘I think Barbie goes on the classic hero journey.’ Kind of like the Buddha’s journey to enlightenment, is the journey that Barbie should go on. Which is, when you know Greta, you’re like, ‘Of course that’s what Greta’s take on Barbie would be,’ but anyone else would never say that in a million years, and as soon as she said it, I was like, ‘Wow.’ It’s weird.”
Further into the interview, Robbie explained that after opening up to Greta’s vision, she realized that this was a path she had never taken with any of the characters she portrayed despite starring in over 30 projects. She stated,
“I was reading Hero with a Thousand Faces. A hundred faces? A thousand? You know that book? … James Campbell. Anyways, it’s all of that. Yeah, it’s a book that has a lot to do with the hero’s journey, et cetera. But she started there and I realized like, ‘Oh, I haven’t really done this before.’ I haven’t played the lead character that many times. And when I have, it hasn’t necessarily been the classic hero journey before.”
Robbie wrapped up her statement by saying that even with the inexperience of not having “the classic hero’s journey,” she pulled off the Barbie role with Greta’s constant guidance.
“So as far as the approach as an actor, I did the things I normally do when I prep for a character. But because it was this classic hero’s journey that I hadn’t really done before, it ended up being a lot of conversations with Greta about life and happiness and what it means to be alive and just big existential questions and I didn’t see that coming.”
The live-action Barbie is scheduled to make its theatrical debut on July 21.