Ryan Gosling, aka Ken, Surprises Director Greta Gerwig with a ‘Barbie’-Themed Flash Mob for Her 40th Birthday

(Image credit: Getty)

published 7 August 2023

What do you get the director of a movie that just surpassed the $1 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “b”) mark at the box office? Well, if you’re Ken—oops, we mean Ryan Gosling—looking to surprise the film’s director Greta Gerwig, you opt for a Barbie-themed flash mob, Access reports.

Gerwig turned the big 4-0 on Friday, and Gosling did it up big. In a video posted to the Barbie movie’s official Instagram account, Gerwig “is captured looking totally shocked when a flash mob comes into her Pilates class singing ‘I’m Just Ken’ to mark her 40th birthday,” Access reports.

After finishing “I’m Just Ken,” the flash mob continued with Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night Away,” which was also featured in the movie.

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“As Kens know…Sometimes the only way to express your feelings is through song & dance!” the caption continued. “Ken Ryan [Gosling] sent these special Barbies and Kens to start Greta’s birthday with all the feelings!!!!”

Two days later, Barbie officially surpassed the billion-dollar mark, which is as good of a birthday gift as any for a director. (In its opening weekend alone, the flick pulled in a successful $356 million—the largest opening of all time for a female director.)

Barbie surpassed Chris Pratt’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s $845 million at the box office last week, officially cementing the film as the blockbuster movie of the summer. The movie’s star Margot Robbie effectively predicted this in an interview with Collider; Robbie—who was also an executive producer on the film—has said in interviews that the movie was in development for a decade, and told the outlet that during her pitch meeting to producers, she convinced execs to greenlight the project because of the winning formula of pairing “a big idea with a visionary director” (a la Jurassic Park and “dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg”).

Margot Robbie in Vivienne Westwood at London photocall July 13

“I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig,’” Robbie said. “And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!”

Manifestation and speaking it into existence for the win!

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.