Barbie Movie Star Emma Mackey Praises Script As Best She’s Ever Read

Barbie movie star Emma Mackey praises the film’s script by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach as one of the best she’s ever read.

Barbie star Emma Mackey calls the movie’s script the best she’s ever read. Plans for a movie based on the classic Mattel doll line Barbie began cooking at Universal as early as 2009. Over the years, both Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway were reported to be attached to the project to star as the titular Barbie.

But it wasn’t until 2019 and a switch to Warner Bros. that things really firmed up regarding Barbie’s future. In July of that year, Margot Robbie was reported to have jumped aboard in the role of Barbie. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach were also confirmed to be onboard as screenwriters. Then in 2021, the Oscar-nominated Gerwig was confirmed to be taking the helm as the film’s director. Another major piece of the Barbie puzzle was added in early 2022 when Ryan Gosling was confirmed to play Ken.

And of course still more cast members have been announced since main stars Robbie and Gosling were confirmed. This includes Sex Education star Mackey, who plays an undisclosed role in the Barbie movie. Speaking recently to Total Film (via GamesRadar), Mackey had occasion to discuss the Barbie script and spoke about Gerwig and Baumbach’s work in glowing terms. “It’s pretty special,” she said, adding “It’s one of the best scripts all of us had read.”

It should of course come as no surprise to hear Gerwig and Baumbach’s work on the Barbie script being praised by one of the movie’s actors. Gerwig after all has been Oscar-nominated twice for writing: in 2018 for Lady Bird and in 2020 for her adaptation of Little Women. And Baumbach himself is no stranger to Oscar nominations for writing, having nabbed a nod in 2006 for The Squid and the Whale and another in 2020 for Marriage Story.

It would indeed be wild if Gerwig and Baumbach each nabbed their third career Oscar nomination for co-writing the script to a movie based on a doll line. But if Mackey is to be believed, the two writers’ work on Barbie is good enough to perhaps warrant such lofty consideration. Details are of course scare as to the specifics of Barbie’s plot, but it has been confirmed that the story involves multiple Barbies and Kens, an indication that the movie is anything but a conventional job of mining valuable IP for the sake of amusing on-screen content. Just the fact that Robbie and Gosling are involved of course also elevates the film above standard entertainment fare. Audiences will get to find out if Mackey is right in her assessment of

Barbie’s virtues when the film finally hits screens next year.