Ryan Gosling came up with a memorable celebration for his Barbie director, Greta Gerwig, to help mark her birthday as the Warner Bros. film maintains its dominance at the box office.
The Barbie film’s official Instagram account posted a video showing Gerwig getting surprised during what appears to be a Pilates class as a flash mob of Barbies and Kens pop into the room in honor of the filmmaker turning 40 on Friday. Gosling plays Ken opposite Margot Robbie’s Barbie in the runaway hit that has topped the domestic box office for three straight weekends and on Sunday surpassed $1 billion globally, making it the first live-action movie from a solo female director to reach that feat.
“As Kens know…. Sometimes the only way to express your feelings is through song & dance!” the post’s caption read. The message went on to reference Gosling’s character: “Ken Ryan sent these special Barbies and Kens to start Greta’s birthday with all the feelings!!”
The recording shows a group of Kens performing a dance routine to “I’m Just Ken,” which Gosling sings in the film. Then, a number of Barbies enter the room, and they all team up to strut their stuff to Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” another tune that is featured in the movie.
“That was so beautiful!” a delighted Gerwig exclaims at the end. She then asks who sent them and is informed that Gosling came up with the idea. The post tags BookAFlashMob.com, which presumably helped to organize the performers.
Based on the Mattel toy line, Barbie brought its domestic total to $459.4 million this weekend with an additional $53 million. Its global tally through Sunday stands at $1.03 billion.