Margot Robbie Brings Radiant Rose Barbie Alive in Red Balmain Dress at the Critics Choice Awards

We really didn’t want to avoid or appease anyone in particular. I feel that whenever characters or movies hit and feel successful, they’re holding up a mirror to the audience. Art is a way for us to understand ourselves: “By analyzing this character and their behavior, and the circumstances they’re in, I’m now able to make sense of something in my life.” That’s what I think every movie should strive to do, because you have to make it feel personal for the audience. You’ve got to make it resonate with them.

That’s not to say we all sat down trying to figure out the puzzle as you describe it. All I knew going into it was that there was an opportunity here to do that thing. It took a really smart person like Greta Gerwig to find the story, and figure out how to unpack all those things. I knew she wouldn’t be glossing over the spiky bits, which was important in our writer/director. I knew she wouldn’t be interested in doing that. She always wanted to explore both the good and the bad, because you don’t get a fully formed experience without looking at both.

But at the same time, and most important of all, it was about finding a person—and I always knew it should be Greta—who would be able to do it without mocking anything. Overall, it was important that it not be mean-spirited. It always had to come from a place of love. And I think it was about making it feel hopeful. It felt like we could hold the spiky bits and the warmth in the same hands.

At the end of the day, the movie is kind of not really about Barbie. Greta’s the genius that looked at it and went, “Aren’t humans so strange? They made a doll, then they got mad at the doll. That’s just insane.” And it’s true; we created Barbie and then we got mad at Barbie, because then we didn’t have to get mad at ourselves. We could shout at her; we could project onto her all of the perceived failings in the world, and we could direct the blame at her. It’s an inanimate object [laughs]. Isn’t that just so crazy?

I can’t claim any of these thoughts were fully fleshed out when I went after the rights for Barbie. But I knew someone would have those thoughts, and I recognized the opportunity and the kind of playground that someone smart like a Greta Gerwig could have fun in.