The trailer for Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie begins with Margot Robbie’s titular character quite literally stepping into the real world with her feet still arched from her high heels. As we now know, the actor filmed the shot with the assistance of a bar located off-camera, but only after Gerwig shut down an early pitch to use CGI.
“There was a big discussion in the beginning,” the Barbie writer and director explained during a recent appearance on the Australian TV show The Project (via Variety). “Everyone said, ‘Are you going to CGI all the feet?’ And I thought, ‘Oh god, no! That’s terrifying! That’s a nightmare.’ And [Margot] has the nicest feet. She has these beautiful dancer’s feet. She should just hang onto that bar and do it just like this.”
Robbie added, “You’d be amazed how few VFX there are in this film, actually. We didn’t do that many takes of it. I kind of held onto a bar so I was steady. We just put double-sided tape on the floor so my shoes would stay still.”
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Watch the full interview below. The discussion begins around the 3:45 mark.
In a recent Time cover story, Robbie said the shot actually took eight takes and explained why she wanted to do it herself. “I really don’t like it when someone else does my hands or feet in an insert shot,” she said.
Barbie steps into theaters on July 21st and co-stars Ryan Gosling as Ken. It also features Will Ferrell as Mattel’s CEO along with a star-studded cast playing other versions of Barbie (Dua Lipa, Issa Rae, and Kate McKinnon) and Ken (Gosling, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, and Kingsley Ben-Adi). Revisit the most recent trailer here.
The accompanying soundtrack drops the same day, featuring already-released songs from Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Karol G, and PinkPantheress.
