Hari Nef on breaking down stereotypes with ‘Barbie’ movie

On a recent episode of Emily Ratajkowski’s ‘High Low’ podcast, actress Hari Nef sat down to discuss how she landed the role in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming ‘Barbie’ movie.

The actress also opened up about what the movie means to her, and how she thinks it’s breaking down stereotypes about femininity.

What the ‘Barbie’ role means for Nef

Nef explained that she approached her audition for ‘Barbie’ with as much seriousness as other Greta Gerwig movies would demand.

“I was thinking about it just as much, I’m auditioning for a Greta Gerwig movie as I’m auditioning for the ‘Barbie’ movie,” she explained. Nef plays Doctor Barbie in the upcoming movie.

“And I made the tape with my co-star in the film, Gayle Rankin, in my hotel room on a lunch break. And I got the part just from the tape.”

Upon landing the role of Doctor Barbie, Nef realized that scheduling conflicts may have meant that her role would just easily be taken away. On a recent Instagram post, Nef then shared a snippet of the letter she wrote to Gerwig on how important it was for her to be in ‘Barbie’, begging to adjust the filming schedule.

“Identity politics and cinema aren’t my favorite combination, but the name BARBIE looms large over every American woman. Barbie’s the standard; she’s The Girl; she’s certainly THE doll,” said Nef in her letter.

“Me and my girlfriends–okay, yeah, me and my other transgender girlfriends– we started calling ourselves ‘the dolls’ a couple of years ago, though the phrase stretches back into the language of our foremothers in the ballroom scene,

“‘The Dolls.’ Maybe it’s a bid to ratify our femininity, to smile and sneer at the standards we’re held to as women. It’s a joke, of course; we throw our voices: ‘the do-o-lls!’”

She added, “the word ‘doll’ is the shape of a woman who is not quite a woman–recognizable as such, but still a fake.”

“We call ourselves ‘the dolls’ in the face of everything we know we are, never will be, hope to be. We yell the word because the word matters. And no doll matters more than Barbie.”

How she approaches her role as Doctor Barbie

Back on Ratajkowski’s podcast, Nef explained that she realizes she does not want to adhere to the hyper-feminine image of Barbie, and tried to make her character a real person rather than a caricature of a toy playing a doctor.

“These are real people. They’re not this flattened like plastic. When people think of the Barbie brand, they think of hyper femininity, and so therefore they think of b—-y or vapid or like super bossy or you know, misogyny basically,” she said.

“And I mean that’s, it’s kind of the thing with acting like you, you can always just take something at face value and take a person seriously, especially a woman, like whatever she’s saying, there doesn’t have to be any irony to it. I think irony is the, is sort of the thing.”

The first Doctor Barbie doll was released in 1973, almost 15 years after the first Barbie debuted in 1959. The doll came complete with scrubs, a lab coat, a stethoscope, and other medical tools.

‘Barbie’ directed by Greta Gerwig is set to premiere on July 21, 2023.