Our favourite plastic fantastic movie this year, Barbie, was praised for a lot of its feminist messaging and for being a celebration of all things girlhood, but there may be one extra exciting wholesome detail that viewers missed.
If you cast your mind back on this dreary day to the flick that took over our bright summer, you’ll remember brief glances at Gloria’s husband. Gloria, played by America Ferrera, was the mother responsible for Barbie’s spiritual awakening.
At one point in the film, Gloria’s husband, played by Ryan Piers Williams, is learning Spanish on popular language app DuoLingo whilst seated on the sofa in their shared home.
Well, it turns out that almost all of this is accidentally based on reality...!
It turns out that actually, America Ferrera and Ryan Piers Williams are married in real life, and according to an interview with Greta Gerwig featured in a TikTok video, it had been written into the script that Gloria’s husband would be trying to learn to speak Spanish.
However, when America saw this, she said, “did you write this because my husband is always learning Spanish?!” before telling Greta that her husband was actually in the other room at that moment, learning Spanish! Greta admitted that this was not actually intentional but was delighted.
From there, Greta actually hired him for the part. The director described him as a “lovely, most wonderful person” and added that he was “so game” to take part in the film.
Greta added that during the cutaway scene, America was actually behind the camera giving direction to her husband in something the director described as feeling “very familial”.