Pop star Dua Lipa is donning a neon blue hue in director Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film Barbie, out June 21.
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Starring in the colorful comedy, also starring Margot Robbie in the lead Barbie role and Ryan Gosling as the main Ken, along with Issa Rae as a Barbie who is the president and Simu Liu as another Ken, Lipa is playing the blue-haired, azure-finned Mermaid Barbie.
The actual Mermaid Barbie doll, designed by Linda Kyaw, was first released by Mattel in 2012 with a limited edition of 4,300 pieces. Today, the Mermaid Barbie doll line has expanded into dozen of designs.
Directed by Gerwig with a screenplay by her and Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, The Squid and the Whale), the film, based on the Barbie doll first launched by Mattel in 1959, will revisit different life-like iterations of the doll, her beau Ken and other characters introduced throughout the history of the toy brand.
Alternate versions of Barbie and Ken were teased in the first trailer in 2022 and featured Kate McKinnon, Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Hari Nef, Emma Mackey, Ana Cruz Kayne, Scott Evans, Sharon Rooney, Alexandra Shipp, Ritu Arya, and Kingsley Ben-Adir, as other versions of each character.
Narrated by Dame Helen Mirren, mirroring 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film also stars Michael Cera as Allan and Emerald Fennell as Midge, based on Mattel dolls of the same name, along with America Ferrara, Ariana Greenblatt, Will Ferrell, Connor Swindells, and Jamie Demetriou in other roles.
In addition to Barbie, Lipa is also starring in the Apple TV+’s spy thriller Argylle, opposite Henry Cavill, Samuel L. Jackson, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, and will also record new music for the film.
Lipa is also working on a follow-up to her second album, Future Nostalgia, released in 2020. “I really feel now that it’s starting to sound cohesive,” said Lipa of the new music. “The album is different—it’s still pop but it’s different sonically, and there’s more of a lyrical theme. If I told you the title, everything would make sense—but I think we’ll just have to wait.”
Photo by Hugo Comte / Warner Music
