It’s A Barbie World: Ryan Gosling Is Morphing Into Ken IRL

Few could’ve predicted just how wild the first glimpses from Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film would be. From Margot Robbie (Barbie) and Ryan Gosling’s (Ken) enjoying Barbiecore roller skates to the announcement that three lead Sex Education stars were joining the project, our excitement for this project couldn’t be higher. And it seems the Barbie effect is creeping into Gosling’s personal life, too.

The actor has been an ambassador for luxury watch company TAG Heuer since 2021. But it’s his latest ad campaign for the brand which is raising peroxide-blonde eyebrows everywhere. The Canadian actor has teamed up with the brand to promote his upcoming thriller The Gray Man – in which he plays a brunette spy known by the mysterious moniker Sierra Six . Yet Gosling opted to stick with his brighter-than-the-sun Ken locks for the photoshoot. Even more brilliantly, one of the campaign shots shows the actor hanging precariously from a high ledge like he’s Spider-Man with a nicer time-piece. All of this has tickled fans to no end.

One commenter on TAG Heuer’s Instagram compared Gosling to Fred from Scooby Doo. A popular opinion on Twitter, too, when it comes to the Barbie discourse. Meanwhile, others cracked jokes about Ken branching out into espionage. “Barbie blade runner feature,” quipped one commenter. “Ken doing stunts now? Very unlikely,” added another. Elsewhere, others chipped in with a simple but effective: “Ken?!”

As The Hollywood Reporter reports, the campaign was shot at the same time as filming was underway for Barbie, leaving TAG Heuer’s CEO Frédéric Arnault in something of a predicament. “There was some debate internally because when we shot these pictures, Ryan was blond for another movie he was shooting,” Arnault explained at a dinner in Beverley Hills held to celebrate the launch. In the end, Gosling was allowed to keep his golden locks. “We thought, ‘OK, we have to be authentic with the way we shot it, and it’s not meant to be a strict copy of The Gray Man. It’s a different campaign.”

Joining the discussion, Gosling added that he was delighted with the outcome. “Secretly, I get a lot of joy out of it because I know that The Gray Man would be Ken’s favourite movie, so it warms my heart to see Ken in these pictures.”

Meanwhile, just this week, Gosling attended The Gray Man premiere in Hollywood sporting another bright suit that Barbie would most likely approve of. Is it an elaborate form of method acting, or does Ryan Gosling really think blonds have more fun? Who knows, but either way… it kinda suits him.