Ryan Gosling awkwardly brushes off Simu Liu on ‘Barbie’ red carpet
It’s a battle of the Kens in real life.
Amid the ongoing fan craze over Greta Gerwig’s new “Barbie” movie, a video has resurfaced of Ryan Gosling (Ken) brusquely brushing off co-star Simu Liu (also Ken) at the film’s press day in Canada last month.
As the duo posed for photographers on the red carpet on June 28, Liu, 34, tried to slip his hand around Gosling’s waist.
It appears Gosling, 42, wasn’t too fond of the gesture, seemingly saying, “Don’t hold me there, man. I mean, do you want me to touch you like that?”
In response, Liu said, “You don’t what – oh, it’s too tender? Fair enough,” before removing his arm away from Gosling.
Naturally, fans were quick to weigh in on the awkward interaction via social media.
“Oh I’d literally never show my face again,” one argued on X (formally Twitter), while another noted, “He [Gosling] was so mad after like you can see it in his face 😭.”
Meanwhile, others theorized that perhaps Gosling and Liu were just trying to play up their roles as different Kens in the film.
“I think it’s their characters playing like they hate each other cause they are in competition with each other in the movie,” one fan explained. “It ain’t that deep.”
As previously reported, Gosling has received raving reviews for his role as Barbie’s clueless male sidekick.
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However, prior to the film’s release, he was forced to defend his casting earlier this year when trolls claimed he was “too old” for the part.
“I would say, you know, if people don’t want to play with my Ken, there are many other Kens to play with,” he told GQ in a June interview, adding he thinks the furious discourse over Ken is “funny” given that people didn’t even think about Ken before he was cast.
“But suddenly, it’s like, ’No, we’ve cared about Ken this whole time,’” he added. “No, you didn’t. You never did. You never cared. Barbie never f–ked with Ken. That’s the point.”
The “Notebook” star concluded, “If you ever really cared about Ken, you would know that nobody cared about Ken. So your hypocrisy is exposed. This is why his story must be told.”
“Barbie,” which stars Margot Robbie as the titular, flaxen-haired character, is already a box office smash. The Gerwig-directed flick, in theaters now, pulled in over $70 million in its first two days.
