One of my favorite mentions of nomination morning came in Best Supporting Actress for America Ferrera for her performance in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. As a huge Superstore and Ugly Betty fan, seeing Ferrera on the big screen in such a huge movie was a joy. With every Barbie re-watch, however, we can dissect how Ferrera’s performance is truly a marvel. Her Gloria gives herself permission to work through the pangs and pain of being a mother to reach for the hot pink-colored joy that has been there all along. Ferrera has long been a solid ensemble player, but Gerwig’s film has given her a chance to shine on such a huge, global stage.
I knew I wanted to talk about Gloria’s sprawling monologue that took the world by storm since the film dropped this summer. Who doesn’t, right? We rarely get to see actors chew on a chunk of meaty, contemplative dialogue like that anymore (especially in a huge studio comedy), and every turn of phrase offers a new glint in Ferrera’s eye. How long has she been sitting on these feelings? Has she ever verbalized them out loud before?
In a roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter, Ferrera revealed that the monologue was shot over two days with the coverage being shot on the first day. After getting those words on their feet, I was curious if Ferrera had a plan of attack for the second day in terms of mulling over the text after she got home or went back to the set the next day. It’s a great piece of writing that allowed Ferrera the opportunity to discover feeling in the moment.
“It was a relief, actually,” Ferrera admits. “I was anticipating that scene for months since I first read the script, and I knew it was a big moment. I was so excited to shoot it, and the pent-up energy around it was huge. It was one of the last things I shot, so I was ready to go. I was a bit nervous about it and wanting to make sure that we found it, and Greta and I spent so much time sharing references about it. It felt like running a marathon. It just felt so good to do it–it was so fun. I got to swim in this meaty, delicious scene for a couple of days, and, over two days, it evolves and changes and ebbs and flows. I felt like I went through this journey with it, and being on the other side of it, felt like a huge sigh of exhaustion and relief. I left it all out on the dance floor.
You get to a point where you think you are done, and then you find something else with it. You pass your threshold, you know? I didn’t know what it was going feel like to finish it, but I felt like I went beyond my comfort zone. Throughout, Greta gave a lot of direction around what scenes sounded like. Barbie, itself, is musical because of the numbers within it, but the dialogue was written musically. Greta heard it musically, and she directed us around cadence. Ryan [Gosling] would say that she was tuning us, and she would sometimes close her eyes as we said our dialogue so she could hear it. With the monologue, I remember wondering how that applied to this dialogue. What was different was that Greta wanted me to find it, and she put so much faith and trust in me–and so much time. It’s such a gift as an actor to live in something for so long and get it in your body on the day to swim in it and discover it…that was such a gift. It felt like the luxury to rehearse a play.”
Is working with a large group of people something Ferrera seeks out? She doesn’t think so, but it’s clear that she likes to play in an arena of performers that know how to step up and deliver their moment and step back to be a part of a larger troupe of actors.
“It’s like an orchestra and everyone playing their own instrument,” she says. “Put us together and that blend can make magic. I have felt so lucky in casts like Ugly Betty where everyone, my god, was so needed, perfect, and funny. We made us all better, and there was no one that I didn’t want to work with. It was always amazing to play a duet or a trio, and, when we were all in a scene, you can enjoy it so much. I felt that, too, with Superstore, especially with those breakroom scenes. In theater, my favorite thing is ensemble drama or comedy when you have ten people on stage, and everyone shines. In Barbie, I had different moments since Gloria spent most of her time with Barbie and Sasha. The days I had with Michael Cera were a blast in that car. De-programming all the Barbies was fun since I got to sit with each of them one-on-one. Watching it, it feels like there is so much happening with everyone playing a different note, and I think that’s the mark–to continue our long metaphor–of a great composer. And that was Greta.”
When we realize who Barbie is having visions of, out eyes immediately lock in on Ferrera’s expressive face. Some of us don’t have kids, but the helplessness on Gloria’s face is heartbreaking as she realizes that her daughter, Sasha, is growing up. It’s something, Ferrera muses, that a lot of parents experience and some fear.
“I read it more as the hurt and struggle of it,” Ferrera says. “In the flashbacks, we see how a kid is dying to play with their mom or dad or they are being silly. They are, in a way, our permission to be a kid again, and they are our portal into your playfulness or your radical imagination. And then, it must feel an incredible loss when that evolves as a child comes of age. We can all relate to that one one end as a kid with our parents, and, usually, you pull away from your parents. I don’t think Gloria was worried but she was dealing with her own worry and hurt of that loss. Adding to that is that moment of disappointment or frustration that led her to summon Barbie. I think a big part of it is when Sasha pulls away from the childhood-ness, Gloria feels that loss too. How, as a grown woman, do you justify accessing your childlike whimsy and playfulness without the portal of a kid? I think it’s beautiful and fun that she’s the one pulling Sasha back into the imaginative world.”
What I love about Gloria seeing Barbie in the real world is how unexpected it is for Gloria. If you think about it, are any of us ready to see our favorite toy in full cowboy garb just…walking around? Gloria doesn’t second guess it, though. Margot Robbie’s Barbie is the Barbie that Gloria knew when she was a young girl. This was the doll that Gloria probably told her first secrets or worries to. Gloria wasn’t just seeing Barbie, she was seeing her first friend–a truly real first love.
“For me, with trying to create Gloria as a character that I understood, the biggest part was reconciling that this was a woman who could play with Barbie dolls and suspend her disbelief to follow her into Barbie Land…she was also a woman who could feel real disappointment, loss, and frustration. Gloria understands the hard parts about life, too, and she can hold onto all of that. A challenge for me was to find the link between that, and they are two sides of the same coin. As young girls, we believe that we can be anything. Whether we learn that through Barbie or another toy or thing that you loved like music. However you played, anything’s possible, and the culture feeds us that, too. Dream big–the sky’s the limit! It’s really about the loss of that when you meet the real world when you get to Sasha’s age. You learn that that’s partly a lie. There are double standards and men hate women and women hate women.
“There is something about Gloria yearning to get back to the feeling that anything’s possible. How do you get unstuck? My relationship with my daughter feels terrible. Work feels like a dead end. How do I get back to the feeling of anything’s possible? For Gloria, Barbie was that experience–Barbie was joy. I didn’t play with Barbies growing up, but I had my version of that in a stage and performance, and I felt like I could do no wrong. I could express any feeling and there was nothing wrong with it. In that moment where she sees Barbie, she’s right there. She’s human and she’s real and she came for me. We all yearn for that–the thing we love love us back. It’s a confirmation of what she wants the most and that’s attaining that impossible feeling that she can get herself unstuck.”
Barbie is streaming now on Max.
