Ryan Gosling Proves He's Way More Than "Just Ken" With Fantastic Musical Performance

Before the Barbie movie hits theaters, take a look at the film's latest promo, which features Ryan Gosling expressing some of his character Ken's frustrations through song.

By Elyse Dupre Jul 10, 2023 8:38 PMTags
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Ken you believe it?

Less than two weeks before the Barbie movie hits theaters, fans got a new promo for the film featuring a musical performance by none other than Ryan Gosling.  

In the clip, released July 10, his character Ken laments through song that life in plastic isn't always fantastic as he cries to Margot Robbie's Barbie about how he doesn't know who he is without her.

"It's Barbie and Ken," he tells her in the video. "There is no just Ken."

And he tries to further explain his feelings through song.

"Doesn't seem to matter what I do," Ken sings while flashing his abs. "I'm always No. 2. No one knows how hard I try. Oh, I have feelings that I can't explain, driving me insane. All my life been so polite."

However, he wants Barbie to see him as more than this.  

"'Cause I'm just Ken. Anywhere else I'd be a 10," Ken belts out. "Is it my destiny to live a life of blonde fragility? I'm just Ken. Where I see love, she sees a friend. What will it take for her to see the man behind the tan and fight for me?"

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And he knows he has more to offer.

"I'm just Ken, and I'm enough," he continues as his fellow Kens—played by Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir—sing along. "And I'm great at doing stuff. So, hey, check me out. Yeah, I'm just Ken."

You know what? You really just have to see it for yourself.

Ryan—who is featured on the film's soundtrack and has also showed off his singing skills in movies like La La Land—seemed to understand what Ken was going through in more than just the Greta Gerwig-directed movie. After all, he'd seen the way Ken was treated firsthand, as he explained how his  and Eva Mendes' daughters Esmeralda, 8, and Amada, 7, played with the doll.

"I would find just Ken discarded all around the house," he exclusively told E! News' chief correspondent Keltie Knight. "So this idea that Greta had that people don't play with Ken is very true."

It's a sentiment Ryan's fellow Kens can't help but agree with.

"I don't think a lot of people owned Ken dolls, which is kind of the funny thing about this movie, right?" Simu also told E!. "Kens are just kinda there. Nobody really cared about Ken. Barbie was always the star of the show. She had the job. She was the accomplished one. She was the astronaut, engineer, doctor, lawyer, whatever have you, president. Kens are just accessories to the Barbies."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Fans can see Ryan, Margot, Simu and the rest of the star-studded cast when Barbie hits theaters July 21.

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