Michael Cera's Agent Nearly Blew His Casting As Barbie's Fan-Favorite Allan: "Call Them Back" (2024)

Barbie star Michael Cera revealed a surprising difficulty involved in getting the role of Allan. The movie, which stars Margot Robbie as Barbie, follows the iconic doll as she travels to the real world to find her owner after a series of strange occurrences impacts her perfect life in Barbieland. Although most of the residents of Barbieland are various alternate versions of Barbie and her boyfriend Ken, Cera's character Allan, Ken's not very popular friend, is the only version of himself.

In a recently released video recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike, GQ asked Cera to discuss some of his biggest roles. When it came time to discuss being a part of the Barbie cast, Cera revealed that his manager was nearly an impediment to getting the role. When asked if Cera was available to shoot in London, his manager implied that the star might not want to travel for the production. While Cera said that "he didn't like blow it or anything," he did have to reach out to Gerwig directly before securing the part. Read Cera's full quote below:

It was a kind of very last minute casting. My manager got a call checking on my availability for it. And he called me and he said, "I got a call about this movie. It's the Barbie movie. Greta Gerwig's directing it and it's filming in London for four months or something. So I told them you probably wouldn't want to do it because you probably don't want to go to London." I was like, "What?! What do you mean? Call them back." I mean, he didn't like blow it or anything, but he's like, "I managed their expectations that you might not wanna do it." And I was like, "How can I not do it? I need to do it.

So somehow I got Greta's email address, I think through a common friend of ours, and I emailed her. I was like, "Can I do that part?" And she was like, "Let's get on a Zoom right now. Here's a Zoom link. I'll be on there for the next hour." So she was just hanging out on the Zoom. She's like "Just click that link whenever you're ready." And then we talked about it and it just all happened really fast from there.

Allan Is An Important Part Of The Fabric Of Barbieland

It could have come to pass that Allan's role became a mere recurring gag about a lesser-appreciated doll from the Barbie family. In fact, this is what happened to the pregnant Midge (Emerald Fennell). However, Allan's relationship to the Kens proves to be a key element in the plot of Barbie.

Related: Why There's Only One Allan In Barbie (Real-Life Explanation)

Allan is a wallflower who observes the goings-on of Barbieland because he is largely ignored by those around him. This allows him to have insight into the radical restructuring that his world undergoes when Ken returns from the real world with information about the patriarchy. Because of this, and his lack of allegiance to the Kens who ignore him, he becomes a vital ally to the Barbies and their fight to maintain their world.

Without Cera, Allan's function in Barbie might have been much more muddled and unclear. The actor harnessed his well-known screen persona as a bumbling nebbish to present a familiar version of himself to audiences before allowing that persona to be subverted over the course of the movie. Without the years of Cera's performances in similar roles fueling that transition, Allan's role in Barbie could have been rendered much less effective

Source: GQ