Ryan Gosling Brings a Big Dose of “Ken-ergy” to the Next Barbie Movie

Ryan Gosling is the new “Barbie” Ken 1:13 (CNN) — Ryan Gosling is very, very excited to play everyone’s favorite plastic boyfriend, Ken, in the highly anticipated “Barbie” movie; so excited, in fact, that he coined a new term: “Ken-ergy.”
In an interview that seemed like a fever dream, the Canadian actor dropped several allusions to Ken in a discussion that was supposed to focus on his new Netflix action thriller “The Gray Man.” But “Entertainment Tonight” couldn’t contain a Ken. Chris Evans’ character in “The Gray Man” calls Gosling’s character “Ken doll” in a meta reference to Gosling’s upcoming role as Barbie’s bleached-blond sidekick. But being called “Ken doll” isn’t “an insult at all,” Gosling said, but rather a sign that Evans’ character recognized a unique vibe within him. “I got this energy from Ken that he could feel, obviously,” he told Entertainment Tonight in the first of many Ken puns. “I still feel that the Ken-ergy is alive.” Asked by host Lauren Zima to elaborate on what exactly ‘Ken-ergy’ is, she just doubled down: “You have a Ken in your life, and you know that Ken has Ken-ergy.” Even as he fielded questions about his new Netflix movie, Gosling found a way to make it all about Ken, painting a complex picture of a toy with a tortured soul and an incredibly generous girlfriend. “That Ken’s life is even tougher than ‘Gray Man,’ I think,” he said. “Ken doesn’t have any money, he doesn’t have a job, he doesn’t have a car, he doesn’t have a house. He’s going through some stuff.” When pressed about plot details for “Barbie,” Gosling played innocent and began to blur the lines between our reality and that of the “Barbie” movie. “Everything Barbie says is exactly right,” he said. “It’s not what you think it is, unless it is. And then you know what it is, but I don’t think it’s what you think it is. Wait, what are we talking about?” He couldn’t reveal more, he said; otherwise, Mattel would come to “box it.” Playing at being a plastic doll for so long apparently went to his head.