This Famous Actor Regrets Having to Turn Down Ken Role in ‘Barbie’: “That Was a Tough, Tough Day”

Every actor and actress has that role: the role they didn’t get but wanted so desperately, or, if you’re perhaps a more established performer, the role they turned down and regretted. For Dan Levy, that role is that of one of the Kens in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster Barbie (in addition to Ken No. 1, played by Ryan Gosling, other Kens were portrayed by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, John Cena, Ncuti Gatwa, and Scott Evans).

Levy told People that he had to turn down the role because of scheduling conflicts: “Logistically could not make it work despite desperately trying to,” he said. “So, yeah, I guess I was technically unavailable to do that.”

Levy is a huge fan of Gerwig, telling the outlet that “I think Greta had such a, like, wonderfully bizarre and magical aesthetic idea of what that movie was,” he said. “I would have loved to play in her world. I think she is one of the great, young auteurs of our time.”

Levy thinks about the missed opportunity frequently, and People reports that, for the actor, “the FOMO was real and lingering”: “Does it haunt me when I sleep at night? Sometimes,” Levy said. “It’s not like it isn’t, like, one of the biggest movies of all time. That was a tough, tough day.”

Next up for Levy is the Netflix film Good Grief, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. In the film, he plays an artist who is getting over the death of his husband by going on a trip to Paris with his two best friends; it is streaming now.