Barbie cast say the set felt like being in a toy box: Everyone 'got to be that kid'

In picturesque Barbie Land, the utopia at the center of Greta Gerwig's Barbie, cotton candy pink homes dot the perfectly manicured green lawns. At the beach, where Mermaid Barbies and Merman Kens pop up from the water to say their hellos, pale pink sand sparkles on the shore. And every structure, including an ice cream shop and disco parlor, assumes a deliberate, plastic-like appearance. Barbie is, after all, a plastic doll, and Gerwig and production designer Sarah Greenwood were particularly keen on this, cleverly paying homage to the plastic toys that once littered the carpeted floor of our childhood homes.

In the comedy, Margot Robbie plays the central Barbie (referred to as Stereotypical Barbie) living in idyllic Barbie Land. Every day is the best day ever for the various Barbies and Kens in the pink suburbia, but during a dance party early in the film, Barbie momentarily brings the festivities to a halt when she asks, "Do you guys ever think about dying?" Strange things happen thereafter — falling off the roof, lingering thoughts of mortality, FLAT FEET! — that leads Barbie to the doorsteps of Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), who informs her she must embark on a journey to the real world to discover the truth about the universe and these occurrences.

To get from Barbie Land to the real world, though, is quite the journey, with Barbie and Ken (played by Ryan Gosling, who snuck into the backseat of Barbie's convertible) commandeering said convertible, a boat, a rocket ship, bikes, a pastel pink camper van, and a snowmobile in order to arrive in the real world, which turns out to be Los Angeles. To get back to Barbie Land from LA, the same route must be followed in reverse.

During EW's Around the Table with the cast, as shown in the video above, Gerwig shares that the joyful transportation sequence goes back to her own childhood of constructing handmade dioramas.

"What was so amazing about working with all these artists was I wanted to make everything as tactile and handmade [as possible]," the director says. "And shooting miniatures and compositing it so it doesn't feel synthetic. It feels like it's real, it's there." With the transportation scenes in particular, "I remember as a kid building basically that, like a diorama that moved, and I put pencils and a scrolled piece of paper that I'd taped together. And then you move the pencils and the background goes."

"I remember being delighted by it and I was like, 'This is the best thing I've ever made,'" Gerwig says. "Essentially it was like that, but bigger. It had three planes of movement. So the back moved slowly, the mid-ground moved a little faster, and then the foreground always had something going quickly, like tulips on a treadmill. So it looked like they were moving quickly. It was so fun."

America Ferrera, who plays a human named Gloria, also shot some scenes on the transportation set as a Mattel employee who becomes a confidant of Barbie after meeting her in the real world. In the age of CGI and digitization, Ferrera says, being on a set that "felt like being in a toy box, like in a diorama that a child would build" was "so magical." She adds, "To approach this movie about toys with that spirit of everything being something that looks like someone made it — it was moving to be on those sets."

The production crew was excited to play, too — everyone from set production to stunt coordination was incredibly passionate about what they were creating.

"It's like they were finally flexing these amazing muscles they have," Robbie, also a producer on the film, says. "They're like, 'Oh, we can do so many things on this movie, whether building life-sized dreamhouses or hand painting mountains on a backdrop...'"

"The men who were puppeteering butterflies!" Gerwig interjects.

Robbie loves that the crew was able to be "creative and silly and playful at the same time," citing one particular battle sequence that allowed stunt coordinator Roy Taylor and others to be a "silly kid" with the "adult smarts to give them the ability" to bring the scenes to life.

Gerwig observes, "Everybody who works on a movie on some level is the kid making something strange on the playground [and is] like, 'I made this!'" The production crew "all got to be that kid. Like, 'Look at what I did!'"

Ferrera heralds the "beautiful artistry in every frame" as a result, adding, "The invitation that you gave to everyone to come and play was so special."

Watch the stars discuss the cheery transportation sequence above, and below, watch EW's Around the Table in full, which also includes Gosling, McKinnon, Issa Rae (President Barbie), and Michael Cera (Allan).

Barbie and her pink convertible cruise into theaters July 21.

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