The Barbie buzz is still going strong. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie proved to be a box office hit this past summer. Tomorrow (December 15), the film will be available to stream on Max. But ahead of its big streaming debut, one of the film’s stars delivered a rock-influenced rendition of one of the movie’s iconic musical numbers.
During a scene in the movie in which Ryan Gosling’s Ken character is experiencing an existential crisis, he breaks into song, singing “I’m Just Ken” — an original number penned for the movie. Last night, fellow Barbie actor Simu Liu, who also plays a version of Ken in the movie, made an appearance at Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, where he performed “I’m Just Ken.”
Driven by drums and guitar played by a backing band, Liu gave the song a bit of a rock edge. While the performance was met with cheers from the audience, Liu later admitted that this rendition was slightly less than perfect.
“the most ken thing about this is that i forgot part of the words to ‘i’m just ken’. what a great night!!!!,” said Liu in a tweet following the show.
the most ken thing about this is that i forgot part of the words to ‘i’m just ken’. what a great night!!!! https://t.co/liiYwhHeMR
— Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) December 14, 2023
But thankfully, if there’s anything we learned from Barbie, it’s that Liu on his own is Kenough.
You can see a clip of the performance above.