I could not get enough of Duana’s post on Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken” performance at the Oscars yesterday. Because what she was writing about and appreciating was the WORK that Ryan put into being Ken.
From the moment he kicked off his Ken era a year ago, making every interview hilarious, promoting this role more intensely and seemingly more passionately than he’s ever promoted a role over the course of his career, he has communicated in no uncertain terms what this character means to him, and what Barbie means to him. This is a movie about a doll in which he plays a doll with no discernible personality – and he took it as seriously as the atomic bomb. And that’s why he’s been everyone’s favourite during this run, this Kenure, if you will (haha sorry, I’ll see myself out but also I haven’t really slept since Saturday so maybe I shouldn’t be sorry, I am tired!). Because that is how he respected this film and the women who wrote and directed and produced it.
That respect was evident in front of the camera, but we’re also finding out how profoundly respectful he was about the responsibility behind the camera. Variety last night published a Show Your Work piece about how the “I’m Just Ken” performance came together and the leadership role that Ryan played in the production while consulting of course, and again respectfully, with Greta Gerwig. He was the one who generated most of the ideas – as Duana noted, that man hit every single mark, every single beat, he was rehearsed and prepared within an inch of his life. And he threw himself into the performance with as much energy and dedication on stage as he does when he’s on set. With one goal I mind. It’s the Ken version of “what’s my motivation”? Ken Gladiator says, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?”
We were entertained. But what was most amazing is that the people in the room were entertained – a cohort of the most cynical and spoiled and overly serious actors, led by Robert Downey Jr, couldn’t help themselves and let their fangirls out to play for four minutes, each and every one of them, I guarantee you, wishing it could have been them up there in a pink sequined suit singing for their lives. It took one of them to tell them about themselves.
Ryan Gosling ate, as the kids say, and then he went home… which is the ultimate flex. He could have gone to Vanity Fair and then Beyoncé’s party for a victory lap, but instead he headed backstage, where his wife Eva Mendes was waiting, and they went home.
So now we have the answer to whether or not Eva would go to the Oscars with him: yes and no. No, they did not walk the carpet together, maintaining their STANDARD of not performing their marriage for the public. I wrote about standards earlier today in my post about Kate Waldo – a standard is only a standard if it is upheld; there is no point in establishing one if you’re not going to maintaining it. Which is why from the beginning, and at The Squawk, I’ve been skeptical about the speculation that she would join him on the carpet. Once you break that standard, there’s no going back, you open the door to having to keep up with the new expectation of proving your love and your unity.
But yes, Eva was in the building and she shared two posts on Instagram from backstage:
So they’re not giving up any shots of them together but they’re also not letting TikTok run away with that fact and turning it into fiction that their relationship may be in jeopardy. I’m not mad at this. Because those amateurs on TikTok are known for chaos and in these times, you might as well stop the chaos when you can. This is something the British royal family does not understand.
