Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy Wants to Star in Barbie 2

Cillian Murphy is feeling the kenergy.

Following in the footsteps of Ryan Gosling, the Oppenheimer star shared he's open to embracing a fantastic life in plastic as Ken in a potential sequel to Barbie.

"Sure, yeah," Cillian told Cinéfilos in an interview shared July 17. "Let's read the script, let's have a conversation."

In the meantime, Cillian said he was looking forward to watching the Barbie movie, which premiered the same day as Oppenheimer.

"I can't wait to see the movie," the 47-year-old said. "I think it's great for cinema to get all these great movies happening this summer."

However, a role in Barbie 2 will likely be a departure from Cillian's transformation in Oppenheimer. After all, the actor observed a strict diet in order to portray J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

"I love acting with my body, and Oppenheimer had a very distinct physicality and silhouette, which I wanted to get right," Cillian told the New York Times in May. "I had to lose quite a bit of weight, and we worked with the costume and tailoring; he was very slim, almost emaciated, existed on martinis and cigarettes."

He also found inspiration for the character throughout the movie's intense filming process.

"It's like you're on this f--king train that's just bombing," he told The Guardian in July. "It's bang, bang, bang, bang. You sleep for a few hours, get up, bang it again. I was running on crazy energy; I went over a threshold to where I was not worrying about food or anything…But it was good because the character was like that. He never ate."

And while word is out if Cillian could be cast in a potential sequel, keep scrolling to see more stars who almost joined Barbie.

Seven years before Greta Gerwig's version of Barbie premiered on the big screen, a movie based on the popular doll was already in the works at Sony, with the comedian attached to the project. However, by 2017, she announced she wouldn't be able to star in the film due to scheduling conflicts. But earlier this year, the Inside Amy Schumer star revealed the real reason behind her exit.

"I think we said it was scheduling conflicts," she said during a June episode of Watch What Happens Live. "That's what we said. But it really was just like, creative differences. But there's a new team behind it and it looks like it's very feminist and cool, so I will be seeing this movie."

The Trainwreck star's sentiment echoes what she previously shared about the direction she realized the project was going in.

"They definitely didn't want to do it the way I wanted to do it, the only way I was interested in doing it," she told The Hollywood Reporter in March 2022. Noting that she wanted Barbie to be an "inventor," she said the studio had the idea that a creation of hers would be heels made of Jell-O and later sent her a pair of Manolo Blahniks.

"The idea that that's just what every woman must want, right there," she said, "I should have gone, ‘You've got the wrong gal.'"

After Amy's departure, the Devil Wears Prada actress signed up to replace the comedian in 2018, with a set release date of 2020. But the end of that year, Deadline confirmed that Anne was no longer attached to the project, which had made its way over to Warner Bros. with Margot Robbie as Barbie instead.

For Margot, who serves both star and co-producer of Barbie, the Wonder Woman star is who she originally envisioned to lead the Barbie world.

"Gal Gadot is Barbie energy," Margot told Vogue in May of the actress, who wasn't available for the part. "Because Gal Gadot is so impossibly beautiful, but you don't hate her for being that beautiful because she's so genuinely sincere, and she's so enthusiastically kind, that it's almost dorky. It's like right before being a dork."

Ahead of Barbie's premiere, the Lady Bird alum (and longtime collaborator of Greta's) revealed she was up for a special cameo in the film, especially since their filming location was literally close to home. Alas, she was busy shooting The Outrun in Scotland at the time.

"I was supposed to do a cameo because I live in London and they were [filming] there," she told People last September. Referring to the concept of playing another version of the iconic doll, she added, "There was a whole character I was going to play—another Barbie. I was gutted I couldn't do it."

Saoirse wasn't the only one Greta was hoping would make a special cameo, as the director revealed she also had her eyes set on her Lady Bird co-star Timothée Chalamet.

"I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy, and both of them couldn't do it, and I was so annoyed," she recently told CinemaBlend. "But I love them so much. But it felt like doing something without my children. I mean, I'm not their mom, but I sort of feel like their mom."

The Schitt's Creek alum was unable to take on a role of a Ken due to the cast having to spend three months filming in London, the film's casting director Allison Jones told Vanity Fair.

Another Ken that could've been live from Barbieland? Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang was another actor who couldn't film, according to Allison.

And last but not least, Ben Platt rounded out the trio of Ken potentials, who, as Allison revealed, were "really bummed they couldn't do it."

The Glee alum felt quite the opposite about missing out on the role as Allan (that would later go to Michael Cera).

"Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can't believe I'm typing this," Allison shared, "but I can't do Allan."

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