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Margot Robbie shares secret behind viral Barbie high heels scene

Fans went wild over the ‘genius’ shot featured in the film’s April trailer

Inga Parkel
Wednesday 28 June 2023 00:54 EDT
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Trailer for The Barbie Movie

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Margot Robbie has detailed the behind-the-scenes set-up used to film the viral Barbie scene that wowed the internet.

Released in April, the first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated comedy romance about the popular Mattel doll featured a close-up shot of Robbie’s feet as she slips out of a pair of fluffy pink heels.

However, instead of standing normally, Robbie’s Barbie stays on her tiptoes in a nod to how the toy doll appears.

Viewers immediately praised the “genius” shot across social media, with Chrissy Tiegan tweeting: “I need to know everything about this shot. How many takes, if she held onto something, was she harnessed, is the landing mark sticky, are they her feet, who did the pedicure, really just a documentary on this shot.”

In a recent interview with Fandango, Robbie finally provided all of the answers to Tiegan’s burning questions.

“They are my feet,” the Australian actor confirmed, adding that it only took “probably about eight takes, wasn’t that many”.

“I walked up, we had little sticky bits on the floor – double-sided tape – for the shoes, so they wouldn’t come off. So that I could get my feet out of them. And I was holding on to a bar, but that’s it,” she explained nonchalantly.

“I wasn’t in like a harness or anything. I just walked up and kind of held onto the bar above camera.”

Robbie was joined by her co-stars Kate McKinnon, Barbie Ferreira and Issa Rae, with the latter applauding her for a “perfect arch”.

“And you were a dancer, right?” McKinnon asked, with the Birds of Prey star responding: “I did ballet when I was a kid.

“I always try and do my own inserts, like I don’t like when I watch a movie, and I know it’s not my hands. I hate that so much. I always say to the director, ‘Please let me do all my own things.’ I don’t like knowing I didn’t do it.”

The movie follows Robbie’s titular character along her journey to the human world to find true happiness after getting booted from Barbieland.

Additional cast members include Ryan Gosling as Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend, and McKinnon, Rae, Dua Lipa, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, John Cena and Michael Cera, all of who will feature as other iterations of Barbie and Ken.

Ferreira, Ariana Greenblatt, Helen Mirren, Will Ferrell, Connor Swindells, and Jamie Demetriou will be playing “humans”.

Barbie debuts in cinemas on 21 July.

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