Even though everyone knew that Ryan Gosling would parade around the Oscars stage as Ken, he had to at least pretend that he wasn’t going to do it. After Barbie was the biggest movie of 2023, the era needed to be bookended by one powerful performance, though Gosling claims he was hesitant to take on the task, initially giving them a “100% no” when asked.
“There’s a lot of ways that could go wrong,” Gosling told host Jimmy Fallon during Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show. Gosling is set to host Saturday Night Live this weekend ahead of his latest action flick The Fall Guy.
But who cares about that, let’s talk about Ken.
Gosling was allegedly nervous about receiving bad reviews for his number. “Imagine the reviews I would have had if I’d have The Roots,” Gosling joked, referring to Fallon’s in-house band. Fortunately, Gosling did end up performing and received glowing reviews, particularly from your friends at Uproxx:
(Ryan really liked that one.)
Surprisingly, not everyone loves his goofball antics. When asked about his daughter’s reaction to the performance, he joked that they don’t really care. “Dad’s Kenning again,” he said. “I mean it was their interest in Barbie and their disinterest in Ken that sort of started all of this.” Gosling previously mentioned that his daughters haven’t even watched the film and likely won’t. Who really wants to see their dad Kenning all the time? Not all kids could handle seeing their father like that. Except maybe Francesca Scorsese.
Check out the full interview below: