Ryan Gosling is really, really excited to be playing everyone’s favorite plastic boyfriend, Ken, in the highly anticipated “Barbie” film — so excited, in fact, that he’s coined a new term: “Ken-ergy.”
In a fever dream of an interview, the Canadian actor snuck several Ken portmanteaus into a discussion that was supposed to focus on his new Netflix action thriller, “The Gray Man.” But “Entertainment Tonight” couldn’t keep a Ken down.
Chris Evans’ character in “The Gray Man” calls Gosling’s character a “Ken doll” in a meta-reference to Gosling’s upcoming role as Barbie’s bleach-blond partner. But being called a “Ken doll” is “not an insult at all,” Gosling said, but a sign that Evans’ character recognized a unique vibe within him.
When host Lauren Zima asked him to elaborate on what, exactly, Ken-ergy is, he merely doubled down: “You have a Ken in your life, and you know that Ken has Ken-ergy.” Even when he was fielding questions about his new Netflix film, Gosling found ways to bring everything back to Ken, painting a complex picture of a toy with a tortured soul and an incredibly generous girlfriend.
“That Ken life is even harder than the ‘Gray Man’ life, I think,” he said. “Ken’s got no money, he’s got no job, he’s got no car, he’s got no house. He’s going through some stuff.”
When pressed on the plot particulars of “Barbie,” Gosling played coy and began to blur the lines between our reality and that of the “Barbie” film.
“Whatever Barbie says is exactly right,” he said. “It’s not what you think it is, unless it is. And then you know what it is, but I don’t think that’s what you think it is. Wait, what are we talking about?”
He couldn’t reveal more, he said; otherwise, Mattel would come and “box [him] up.” Playing plastic for so long seems to have gone to Gosling’s head.
