Margot Robbie Takes You Inside The Barbie Dreamhouse | Architectural Digest (2023)

Introduction

Today on AD, Margot Robbie takes us behind the scenes of ‘Barbie’ for an exclusive tour of the Barbie Dreamhouse. When tasked with bringing these iconic childhood toys to life on the big screen, Greta Gerwig enlisted the skills of production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer. Taking inspiration from Palm Springs midcentury modernism they’ve created a whimsical fuchsia pink fantasy where slides replace stairs and there’s not a wall in sight–when touring this impressive set it’s hard not to feel a rush of playful nostalgia as Greta states “I wanted to capture what was so ridiculously fun about the Dreamhouses." Barbie hits theaters on July 21.

Promotional Consideration BARBIE from Warner Bros. Pictures, Written by Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach, Directed by Greta Gerwig.

Director: Jasia Kaulbach
Senior Producer: Vara Reese
Director of Creative Development: Morgan Crossley
Line Producer: Joe Buscemi
Associate Producer: Josh Crowe
Production Manager: Melissa Heber
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila
Post Production Supervisor: Andrew Montague
Post Production Coordinator: Holly Frew
Supervising Editor: Christina Mankellow
Graphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin
Graphics, Animation, VFX: Brady Jackson, Léa Kichler

Shot and edited by Mob Scene: @mobsceneagency

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Video

Welcome to Bobby's dream house.

Come on in this is my breakfast table and my kitchen we're in the living room right now, here's a fun, little bar and the slide that goes from the bedroom down into the pool, not super practical.

But nothing is for Bobby fun and gorgeous and it's see-through.

So we can see each other all the Barbies in their own Barbie dream houses, wake up in the morning, and they can wave at each other.

So many references and I can't even tell you the meetings we've had about pink.

We like sat with all these different kinds of Pinks.

And we were like what is the pink? And how do the pinks interact because I didn't want it to be so classy that it didn't like when I was a little girl, I liked the pinkest, brightest things.

But this is our white.

This is our palest pink that's.

Our White.

It was pretty incredible seeing this set for the first time it was kind of surreal because it's been so long looking at the Miniatures and the models and the drawings and the design, you know of what it was going to look like.

And then when you see it firsthand in real life, it's all there and it's like it's, I, don't know, it's, it was really exciting when we first stepped onto this set, we all were just like we're in the real deal.

So we don't have to imagine it all it's.

Just there in front of us.

How special is that because Barbie was invented in 1959.

It felt like we could ground everything in that look of a 1950s, Sound Stage, musicals, Gene, Kelly, Vincent, Minnelli, like those kind of wonderfully fake, but emotionally, artificial spaces.

One thing that like those the soundstage musicals did so well were beautiful.

Artificial Skies there's, a sort of surrealness of the gradation of color, getting a blue sky, we're painting, white clouds on it.

And when you light them, you can light them into these intense colors.

So you can light pink and orange from the bottom Blue from the top, you can really go kind of expressionistic with it Sarah Greenwood, our production designer Katie and her whole team have just done the most extraordinary job putting this together.

A lot of the things you see are actually handmade, it's, pretty incredible what they can do how they can design things in Miniatures and then replicate them.

Our main time frame was from the invention of Barbie through to now they're Timeless pieces, which also has an echo to the actual toys that are in the Dreamhouse that Mattel made today, it's, very simple and clear and beautiful.

And that was one of Greta's keywords that it has to be beautiful.

It has to be beautiful as well walking into those environments and feeling the kind of artistry and the love and the playfulness.

It just was so exciting you're.

The one thing that was a surprise for all the little monkeys, if you see any monkeys around I didn't ever see them in the drawings and I got to set just got a kick out of it.

I love, the bubble bath.

My favorite design feature is obviously the slide that goes to the pool.

And now we do a whole bit in Barbie's Day, where she slides down the pool to go down and have her breakfast taking it properly from the late 50s to the to the 60s was a big influence of that sort of modernist furniture that was coming through the kitchen's great.

So we have a mixture of, you know, things that are physically there, but then also decal because again, playing into the world of toys, and and how it would look if it was a Mattel product our kitchen being a great example of that.

So on the back here, you have just a decal, uh, you know, so it is intentionally 2D and it's that thing where we want things to be obviously artificial, but still very satisfying come and see the phone.

There is no water in Barbie land, there's, no water or fire.

There are no elements, it's, actually funny to see how many people avoid walking.

Everyone walks around the pool, even though it's, fake it's really beautiful, which is kind of like everything in Barbie land.

Let's take a look upstairs.

We are right next to Bobby's wardrobe.

And this is where she brushes her hair, Avana, our hair, makeup designer and I have had a lot of fun on this job.

There's been a lot of wigs, but all the Barbies really can change their hair in a kind of unrealistic impossible magical ways in one scene.

She might have hair up here.

And then the very next scene, it's, a giant long, ponytail, I want everyone to feel like they can reach onto the screen and touch everything I mean.

So, emotionally, just remembering like standing in Toys, R Us, looking Barbies with the plastic sheet over it and everything in you wanted to take it off and take everything apart and touch everything just talking about aggressive, wanting to go inside the box, that's actually, Barbie's wardrobe.

This is the beautiful wardrobe that does open and there's all the clothes.

Yeah, this was a design thing that we were very excited about.

We were saying that the Wardrobe been clueless like the bar was set so high.

And we would really like to do something that is as cool as that Barbie.

Each day her outfit is already magically here in her wardrobe.

She opens the doors all she needs to do is look at.

It gives a spin and then it's on her body.

She walks off an outfit for the next day is sitting in the wardrobe behind her.

This is Bobby's toothbrush.

This is how she brushes her teeth.

This is her shower.

There is, of course, no water in Barbie land.

But she showers nonetheless, I, actually, just, um would look up the old redox commercials and try and replicate that good night, Barbies, I'm, definitely not thinking about death anymore, come up and see Barbie's bedroom.

She wakes up with perfect hair.

No morning breath, her pajamas are impossibly ironed and beautiful still.

And she feels great energized for another Perfect Day in Barbie land.

So the way bobby gets into her car.

She walks to the edge, and she impossibly floats down into her car credit said, you know, no one actually walks their Barbie down the steps to get into the car.

You just take them from one thing and just plop them into the next thing.

And as you can see, Barbie has a pretty amazing view of Barbie land from here.

And she can see where all her friends are Barbie, Emma's house, Barbie, Anna's house, Bobby, Alex's house and over.

There is where Skipper and Midge live in little Skipper's Treehouse thing, which you may have noticed was replicated from the actual toy.

We considered a heritage site.

So now Bobby is ready to start her perfect day.

This is where she gets her mail by the way all the riding in Barbie land is actually just gibberish it's, just scribbled away.

Kids kind of write endless amounts of you know, nothing, but it's all very beautiful.

Thank you for coming to see the dream house, I have to get back to set now bye-bye.