America Ferrera as Mattel employee Gloria in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.".Photo:Warner Bros
Warner Bros
America Ferrera’sBarbiemonologue was no small feat.
In a new interview withVanity Fair, theBarbiestar, 39, opened up about taking on the epic speech and how it became one of the hit film’s most memorable and talked-about moments.
The speech is, in the actress’s words, about the “impossible assignment” modern women face, “being all things to all people.”
Ferrera, who plays Gloria, a Mattel employee from the real world — not Barbie Land — in therecord-breakingfilm, toldVFthat it was “amazing” to hear about the moving responses audiences had to the monologue.
She said the emotional speech “felt like pressure in the nicest way” when she first stepped into the world ofBarbie.
“It’s one of the first things Greta mentioned to me even before I read the script,” she told the outlet. “She said, ‘I wrote this monologue for Gloria, and I’ve always imagined you saying this.'”
“Barbie” stars America Ferrera, Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig at the movie’s South Korea premiere in July.Han Myung-Gu/WireImage
Han Myung-Gu/WireImage
She continued, “I read the monologue and it hit me as powerful and meaningful. It also felt like, ‘Wow, what a gift as an actor to get to deliver something that feels so cathartic and truthful.’ But it also felt like this pivotal moment that I obviously didn’t want to mess up.”
“There was a little bit of healthy pressure around it,” she added.
TheUgly Bettystar shared that she “initially felt” the monologue would not end up as “straightforward and real” as it did in the film.
“I assumed that there might be a tone that maybe made it, I don’t know, I guess easier for people to hear or to swallow,” she toldVF. “Greta really didn’t want that. She wanted it to just sound like the truth.”
To relay this truth to audiences, Ferrera said it took what “felt like 500” takes in two days — but she is “sure it wasn’t.” Realistically, the actress said, “it was probably 30 to 50 full runs of it, top to bottom.”
On-screen mother-daughter duo Sasha and Gloria (Ariana Greenblatt and America Ferrera) in “Barbie.".Warner Bros
When they wrapped the final take, Ariana Greenblatt, who portrays her daughter Sasha in the film, could recite the monologue herself, Ferrera said: “She had memorized it because that’s how many times I had said it.”
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America Ferrera, who stars in “Barbie” as Mattel employee Gloria, at the Mexico premiere of the film.Hector Vivas/Getty Images
Hector Vivas/Getty Images
Barbieis now playing in theaters.
source: people.com
