AS it currently exists, Barbie is already a star-studded affair. But according to Michael Cera, Greta Gerwig’s film was supposed to have another Hollywood A-lister however, it was not meant to be.
During the recent Happy Sad Confused podcast, host Josh Horowitz quizzed Cera on the “fight scene” in Barbie involving the actor’s character Allan with the “Construction Kens”.
“I wasn’t even supposed to fight in the movie,” Cera said. “Am I allowed to say what was supposed to be?”
He then dropped Ben Affleck’s name before going on to say that the former Batman star had to drop out of the film due to his commitment to Air, the sports drama that also premiered last year.
“I think Ben wanted to do it, but he was directing his movie Air, but they didn’t find that out until the 11th hour. They’re like, ‘Okay, Ben is out. Something has to happen here, so you’re going to fight them’,” Cera says, explaining that it was a struggle for him, as the actor had to learn the stunts while recovering from Covid-19.
“I had to jump in with the stunt team. I had just gotten over Covid and they had me trained and I almost died just doing a warm-up. I had to lie down in the trailer and they sent a nurse to see me.”
Affleck joins Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan, Dan Levy and Bowen Yang in the list of actors that had to drop out of Barbie.