Schumer said she was the ‘wrong gal’ for the job
Barbie is a box-office smash hit, but it could have been a very different movie.
While Margot Robbie is getting rave reviews for playing the leading role, she wasn’t always in the frame to be the most famous doll in the land.
Up until 2017, a very different actress was being considered for the part – comedian Amy Schumer.
The film, which came out on July 21, had been in development since 2009 when toy maker Mattel signed a partnership with Universal Pictures.
However, when nothing came of the plans, it moved to Sony Pictures in 2014.
Schumer signed on for the part two years later, and was also set to pen the script.
But that didn’t happen, and Schumer distanced herself from the project a few months later, reportedly over scheduling conflicts.
She later explained to the Hollywood Reporter why, saying she was the “wrong gal” for the job and had experienced creative differences with Sony over the project.
Schumer said: “The studio definitely didn’t want to do it the way I wanted to do it. The only way I was interested in doing it.”
Apparently, Schumer had been pushing for Barbie to be an inventor and was not happy when Sony suggested that she could create a pair of high heels made out of jelly.
The tipping point, when Schumer knew she wasn’t the right fit for the part, came when she was sent a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes by the studio to celebrate her casting.
“The idea that that’s just what every woman must want, right there, I should have gone, ‘You’ve got the wrong gal’.”
Warner Bros Studios picked up the movie in 2018 and Robbie was cast in July 2019.
Greta Gerwig signed on as director two years later.
Schumer has since posted on Instagram that she really “enjoyed” both Barbie and Oppenheimer; however, she said she should have been cast as Emily Blunt’s role of Kitty in Christopher Nolan’s film.
She jokingly wrote. “Do better Hollywood” alongside a picture of her with a stern look wearing sunglasses and a straw hat.
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