Tonight is Hollywood’s biggest night, the Oscars — and one of the many films in contention for Academy gold is Barbie.
Arguably, you could say that Ryan is one of the big stars of this year’s Oscars. He’s nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and he’s set to perform “I’m Just Ken” on the telecast himself.
The performance is rumored to be huge, even by Oscars standards — with more than 65 dancers potentially taking the stage along with Ryan. It’s gonna be a big deal.
Arguably, you could say that the “I’m Just Ken” performance is the most anticipated part of the telecast — which will make the following fact all the more surprising: The song was almost cut from Barbie entirely.
Mark Ronson, one of the two songwriters credited to “I’m Just Ken,” revealed the shocking tidbit in a recent interview with Sunday Times Culture.
“At that first screening the song wasn’t working. I panicked,” he recalled, stating that the studio proceeded to confront director Greta Gerwig and ask “how much she really needed” the song to be in the film.
“She said, ‘With every inch of my body.’ And then there was a big swing,” Mark claims, while also admitting that he was still worried the song would be a blight on the film: “I thought, ‘God, I hope we don’t ruin it.'”
Of course, the rest is history — and as Mark explains, “I’m Just Ken” ended up doing some good for the world, too: “Ken is ridiculous. But Greta’s point was that nobody should ever be laughing at a character. We feel their pain, as crazy as that sounds about a guy wearing a white mink and two pairs of sunglasses.”
“I never wanted to write a song for a cheap laugh. You want something to get under people’s skin. I know I’ll sound like David Brent, but the song helped young boys. My friend’s eight-year-old got broken up with and he said, ‘It’s OK, because Ken got broken up with by Barbie.’”
“The song tells boys that it’s OK to be runner-up. The internet’s caused a level of isolation in boys and this idea of male camaraderie and sharing your feelings is a nice and unexpected thing to come out of it.”
Hear hear! Watch the Oscars tonight at 7 p.m. EST on ABC — and head here for all of our coverage throughout the night and beyond.
