America Ferrera plays a central role in Barbie as Mattel employee, Gloria, and she's revealed that she was feeling the pressure not to "eff up" her big moment towards the climax of the movie [note spoilers ahead!].
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Ferrera has discussed how she prepared for her character's epic monologue that helps break Ken's spell over the other Barbies.
"I mostly tried to forget about it 'till I had to do it", she said. "Greta [Gerwig, the director] didn't make it easy. You were like, 'There's a monologue. Meryl Streep says she would like to do this monologue'. I was like cool, no pressure!"
Her big speech was shot towards the end of the production of the film, and America Ferrera went on to say that this made it feel like she was "holding it for a long time and the energy was building, building, building".
"My experience of the moment was that Greta gave me so much space and so much trust. I obviously didn't wanna eff it up. I wanted to do it justice", she added.
In the scene, Gloria delivers an impassioned speech detailing the countless pressures of womanhood and how there's simply no way to live up to all the societal expectations that are put upon modern women.
It's this moment that helps to snap the Barbies out of their trance and kickstarts their plan to take back control of Barbieland from the Kens who have discovered the concept of patriarchy.
In the same interview, Ferrera explained that it was easy to access the necessary energy to carry a speech of this emotional weight when she realized the truth in its message.
"There's no woman in my life that this isn't true for. So like, how do you tell the truth?" she said. "I felt like I could go to all the places because I had so much trust that you [referring to Greta Gerwig] would know what was right for the movie... I felt like that was freedom, to have so much trust in the leader of like, 'She'll know, so I'm free to do what I want and she'll make it right."
Barbie is in theaters now. For more info on all the big releases coming your way this year, check out our guide to the biggest new movies of 2023.
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