America Ferrera’s ‘beautiful’ Barbie monologue took 2 days to film and left crew ‘sobbing’
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE BARBIE MOVIE
Even though opening weekend for the eagerly-anticipated blockbuster smash of the summer is now well and truly behind us - it's clear there are no signs of the rife Barbie-mania dying down anytime soon.
With an astonishing debut on Rotten Tomatoes with an impressive 88 percent score, alongside Ryan Gosling getting serious some Oscar buzz for his performance as Ken - it's no wonder why fans are still going absolutely nuts for the movie.
And the latest praise for the film, directed by the iconic Greta Gerwig who has since made history after receiving the title of the highest opening weekend set by a solo female director, is all about a particularly powerful speech.
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The 'beautiful' monologue in question, performed by America Ferrera, took a whole two days to film and left the film crew 'sobbing'.
Ferrera, best known for starring in Ugly Betty, plays Gloria in the Barbie film who is the only female employee at Mattel as well as a mother to her moody teenage daughter, Sasha.
As Barbie, played by the legendary Margot Robbie, suffers a pretty intense existential crisis brought on by experiencing the patriarchy outside of Barbie Land, Gloria snaps her right out of her funk.
"It is literally impossible to be a woman," she begins. "You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we always have to be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong."
"You have to be thin, but not too thin," Gloria continues. "And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.
"You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean..."
The incredible speech goes on, namely highlighting the relentless double standards and contradictions that women face in a patriarchal society.
Gloria goes on: "Never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.
“You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you!
"And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault."
She finishes by admitting she's 'so tired' of watching herself and 'every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us'.
"And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know," she concluded.
Literal goosebumps.
Audiences were, no doubt, totally obsessed with Ferrera's monologue but it seems it wasn't just cinema-goers who were touched.
Speaking about capturing the monumental scene, Greta revealed to The Atlantic that even the crew shed a few tears on set.
"When America was giving her beautiful speech, I was just sobbing, and then I looked around and I realized everybody's crying on the set," she said.
Even though the speech was aimed at women and the lived experiences women face on a day-to-day basis, Gerwig explained that even the male crew members were 'crying'.
She added: "The men are crying, too, because they have their own speech they feel they can't ever give, you know? And they have their twin tightrope, which is also painful."
Ferrera revealed to Vanity Fair that the monologue scene took '30 to 50' takes to get it right, saying: "We shot it over two days.
"It’s one part of a much bigger scene with lots of characters in it. I had to do it many, many times for other people’s coverage and to get through the whole scene and over the course of two days."
Well, it seems hard work paid off as the scene in question is definitely going to go down in cinematic history - that's for sure.
Barbie is currently available to watch in cinemas worldwide.
Topics: Barbie, Celebrity, Film and TV, Margot Robbie, Warner Bros
Rhiannon Ingle