Barbie director Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie and America Ferrera chat to Mashable’s Ty Cole about the anticipated film’s so-called “Real World”, why it’s probably OK to have a problem with Barbie, and the impossible standards society still sets for women, both fictional and real.

Barbie hits cinemas July 21.

(Editor’s note: Mashable’s interviews were conducted ahead of the SAG-AFTRA strike, commenced July 13.)

Source: Mashable

Director Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Michael Cera, and America Ferrera sat with RT correspondent Naz Perez to talk about their upcoming movie, ‘Barbie’. The cast and director revealed how they channeled their inner Barbies and Kens while filming, how Greta Gerwig chose specific Barbies and Kens to be featured in the film, and so much more. See ‘Barbie’ in theaters July 21.

America Ferrera Source supports the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The nearly 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents all performers on film and television, are going on strike.

On Thursday, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced its national board voted unanimously to launch the guild’s first strike. The news was unveiled by SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher and National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland during a press conference, following the expiration of the union’s current contract and a 12-day extension of contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers (AMPTP).

Why are the actors going on strike?
The short answer is because the SAG-AFTRA bargaining committee and AMPTP could not reach an agreement to form a new contract after their previous one expired on June 30.

But the reasons for a strike are many. SAG-AFTRA has faced a host of radical changes as the industry has pivoted away from more traditional models of theatrical distribution and network and cable television in favor of streaming. The issues at hand include the use of AI in generating and perpetuating actors’ likenesses, as well as residuals and data transparency for streaming projects. Other points of conflict are also salaries, particularly for guest stars, costars, and background actors, as rising inflation and the cost of living increasingly prevent many working actors from earning a living wage.

Drescher summed up the reasons for a strike in a press conference speech. “We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us,” she said. “I cannot believe it, quite frankly. How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right while giving hundreds and millions of dollars to their CEOS. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.”

She continued: “The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI. This is a moment of history that is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business, who cares more about wall street than you and your family.”

#SAGAFTRAstrong #SAGAFTRAstrike

America Ferrera is featured on the cover of the July/August 2023 issue of “The Cut” magazine! Read her interview in our press archive and check out her cover below.

Barbie is hitting theaters next week, and it sees a star-studded line-up of actors playing various Barbies and Kens led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. The Greta Gerwig-directed film also features a handful of human characters, including one played by America Ferrera. Recently, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Ferrera, and she talked about how she’s glad she ended up cast as a human instead of a Barbie in the film. During the chat, we asked Ferrera if there were any moments from the film that transported her back to her childhood, and she revealed she cried on the first day of filming.

“Let’s see. What I remember is walking in the first day of filming and it was like the first shot and it was Margot waking up in bed on her perfect day in her heart bed,” Ferrera explained. “And I looked at the screen and I just started to cry. It was just like, ‘I can’t believe that it’s this beautiful and that it’s this thoughtful and meaningful and we get this movie about a woman icon for women and it’s like the movie she deserves. It’s the movie we deserve.'”

Ferrera continued, “And there’s positives and negatives to her and there is room for all of it in the movie, but that we didn’t just get some low-budget, glossy, couple of bad, outdated jokes thing that moms would’ve taken their kids to see anyway.” She added, “The fact that this is the version we got where there are layers and layers and layers of artistry, and it’s like, ‘Of course, we deserve movies like this. Of course, our stories and the things we love and value deserve to be treated like this.’ And I’m just so grateful for Margot and for Greta for being the ones to shepherd it.”

Source: CBR

Check out the following video clips featuring an interview with the cast of Barbie from SiriusXM.

America Ferrera admits that it was a “no-brainer” to star in ‘Barbie’.

The 39-year-old actress plays Mattel employee Gloria – who discovers Barbie in the real world – in Greta Gerwig’s much-hyped new movie and experienced a whirlwind of emotions when she first read the script.

Asked if it was easy to accept the role at the movie’s European premiere in London on Wednesday (12.07.23), America said: “Once I read the script, absolutely. I finished the script and I was laughing and crying and I just felt so moved that Greta saw me in the role of Gloria. It was a no-brainer.”

The ‘Ugly Betty’ star features alongside Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Will Ferrell in the film and was impressed by the “stacked” quality of the cast.

America said: “When I came on, it was Margot and Ryan who I had been a big fan of for a long time.

“It was a great cast to join and it just kept getting more and more stacked.”

America explained how she and Greta shaped her alter ego Gloria with inspiration from the women who pushed for the iconic doll to “evolve” and “be inclusive”.

She said: “Gloria is her own character but Greta and I talked about my character and one of the things we both found was inspiration in the real-life women who pushed the Barbie brand to evolve and include so many more people and to be inclusive of all different body types and skin colours and abilities.

“She was such an interesting figure as a very self-possessed woman valuing Barbie and pushing something she really valued to evolve and change.”

The star also quipped that she would like to take a “break” from the colour pink after working on the movie.

Ferrera said: “I’ve had a whole lot of pink in my life in the last year. I love pink – I sometimes, you know, wanna break from it – but I love our Barbie pink world.”

Source: Yahoo UK