Michael Cera Says ‘Barbie’ Casting Was ‘Very Last Minute’

It's hard to imagine, but Michael Cera almost didn't star in Barbie.

During an interview with GQ before the actors' strike took place last month, the actor — who portrays Allan in the summer blockbuster — got candid about how his involvement in the Greta Gerwig film came about.

"It was a kind of very last-minute casting," Cera said. "My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me and he said, 'I got a call about this movie. It's the Barbie movie. Greta Gerwig's directing it, and it's filming in London for four months or something, so I told them you probably wouldn't want to do it because you probably don't want to go to London.'"

"I was like, 'What! What do you mean? Call them back!'" he continued. "He didn't like blow it or anything, but he's like, 'I managed their expectations that you might not want to do it.' I was like, 'How can I not do it? I need to do it!'"

Cera admitted to getting Gerwig's personal email via a mutual friend, and reaching out right away.

"And she was like, 'Let's get on a Zoom right now. Here's a Zoom link, I'll be on there for the next hour,'" Cera recalled. "So she was just hanging out on the Zoom, she's just like, 'Just click that link whenever you're ready.' And then we talked about it, and it just all happened really fast from there."

Mattel's Allan doll was introduced into the Barbie universe in 1964, one year after the debut of his wife and Barbie's best friend, Midge, who was created to combat criticism that the original doll was "too sexy."

Although they were retired in the '60s, they enjoyed a reboot in the 1980s (this time, Allan's name was spelled with one "L"). But they were discontinued again in 2002, shortly after a new pregnant Midge doll drew controversy.

Pregnant Midge makes a comeback alongside Cera's Allan — Emerald Fennell portrays the doll with a baby bump in Gerwig's summer blockbuster.