[Editor’s note: This interview was recorded prior to the SAG strike.]Not only is Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie the star of one of this summer’s most-anticipated blockbusters, but she also served as a producer on Barbie as well. In fact, before director Greta Gerwig was even attached, Robbie was selling this original idea to studios with a clever pitch she now shares with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff. Those meetings would eventually land the film an Oscar-nominated director and a huge cast of talented actors like Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, America Ferrera, Simu Liu, and Kate McKinnon.

From pitch to production, Barbie is stacked with all the elements for box office success — some of the biggest names in the industry, Mattel’s support to tell a uniquely meaningful story through their iconic dolls, and a crew of skilled creatives that brought Barbie Land to life in all its pink, plastic glory. Gosling joins the discussion with Perri to sing Gerwig’s praises for her work behind the camera, as well as co-writing with partner and filmmaker, Noah Baumbach. In the movie, Gosling plays the Ken to Robbie’s Barbie, roles Robbie tells us Gerwig penned specifically with them in mind.

Check out the full interview in the video above or in transcript form below to find out how exactly Robbie sold Warner Bros. on the fantastic life in plastic and why she wasn’t originally planning on stepping into Barbie’s shoes.

Image via Warner Bros

PERRI NEMIROFF: Because I want to see more studios make big, bold films like this, I’ll ask you this as a producer on this, Margot, what was the key to convincing Mattel and Warner Bros. to not only give you the OK on this script but also to give you guys creative control with your vision?

MARGOT ROBBIE: I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director. And then I gave a series of examples like, “dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg,” that and that, that and that – pretty much naming anything that’s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, “And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.” And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!

As someone with a Jurassic Park tattoo, everything you just said made all the sense in the world to me.

ROBBIE: Do you actually?

I do have one!

ROBBIE: Well, it’s kind of true. Can you imagine that first meeting? They’re like, “Dinosaurs? I don’t know, I mean, yeah? That might turn out kind of silly.” And then here we are decades later being like, “That’s the greatest movie ever.”

Masterpiece!

Image via Warner Bros. 

Ryan, what is something about Greta’s approach to the work here that you really appreciated and hope to experience on more films in the future?

RYAN GOSLING: Greta, she’s just such a brilliant person and such an inclusive person. She’s brilliant but incapable of being pretentious. I think what I admire so much about her work is that she doesn’t allow herself to create a divide between drama and comedy, and she encourages everyone around her to do the same. So you end up mining places that are in the in-between and it feels very specific to her, but also something that you can relate to because it’s more like life.

Margot, I know when you originally signed on you were not planning on playing Barbie, so who did you picture in that role, and then do you remember the moment when you first stood there and thought to yourself, “No, this was the right choice. This role is mine?”

ROBBIE: I didn’t want whoever our director was going to be – Greta being the first choice, but if she had said no – I didn’t want our director to feel pressured to put me in the role. So I was just really upfront about like, “I won’t be offended in the slightest. We could go to anyone. Whatever story you want to tell and whoever you want that to be, I support that. I’ve got skin in the game as a producer, I don’t have skin in the game as an actor, so be free with that choice.” And she was like, “Shut up, I want to write this for you.” And I was like, “You might feel pressured to say that, but …” and we did that dance for a while. And then eventually I just accepted that she did want me to play the role, and then she wrote it. She wrote me in and she wrote Ryan in, and it was our names printed in the script from the get-go: “Barbie – Margot,” “Ken – Ryan Gosling.”

Image via Warner Bros.

A strong vision that she saw through to fruition.

ROBBIE: Talk about manifesting!

Barbie opens in theaters on July 21st. For more from the movie, check out Perri’s interview with Simu Liu below.