Despite earning eight Oscar nominations, including one for best picture, the absence of Barbie in two key categories has been enough to stoke the flames of awards snub discourse. The film’s nominated performers—Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera as best actor and actress in a supporting role—have both said that they believe Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie deserved recognition in the best-director and best-actor categories, respectively. (Gerwig is nominated for cowriting the film’s screenplay, while Robbie is nominated as a producer in the best-picture category.) Hot takes from the likes of Hillary Clinton and Whoopi Goldberg followed.
But neither Gerwig nor Robbie had addressed the drama themselves—until now.
“There’s no way to feel sad when you know you’re this blessed,” Robbie reportedly said during a Screen Actors Guild panel on Tuesday, in acknowledgment of Barbie’s box office—and yes—awards success. Deadline reported that Robbie is “beyond ecstatic that we’ve got eight Academy Award nominations. It’s so wild,” the actor added.
Robbie went on to say that Gerwig, who is the first filmmaker in history to have her first three solo feature films—Barbie, Little Women, and Lady Bird—nominated for best picture, should have been in the best-director lineup this year as well. “Obviously I think Greta should be nominated as a director, because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is,” Robbie said. “But it’s been an incredible year for all the films.”
In their respective statements, Ferrera said that she was “incredibly disappointed” that Robbie and Gerwig were left out of certain categories, while Gosling declared that “there is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie” without the aforementioned duo.
While the controversy could potentially have a positive influence on Barbie’s Oscar odds, Robbie is focused on the film’s larger societal impact. “We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact,” she said, “And it’s already done that and some—way more than we ever dreamed it would. And that is truly the biggest reward that could come out of all of this.”
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