‘Barbie’ Fight Scene Came As A Surprise To Michael Cera, Since Another Big Star Was Supposed To Do It

Michael Cera fought when Batman couldn’t.

A Q&A for the Happy Sad Confused podcast revealed that Cera’s big fight scene in Barbie with construction worker Kens came about only because Ben Affleck dropped out of the film.

“I wasn’t even supposed to fight in the movie,” Cera said. “Am I allowed to say what was supposed to be? It was supposed to be Ben Affleck. Am I allowed to say that?”

Affleck had to drop out of Barbie because of his commitment to last year’s sports drama Air. “I think Ben wanted to do it, but he was directing his movie, but they didn’t find that out until the 11th hour.”

“They’re like, ‘Okay, Ben is out. Something has to happen here, so you’re gonna fight them,'” Cera recalled.

Cera was recoverng from Covid at the time, so doing a lot of activity was draining.

“I had to jump in with the stunt team. I had just gotten over Covid and they had me training and I almost died just doing a warm-up. I had to lie down in the trailer and they sent a nurse to see me.”

Watch the rest of Cera’s interview — which also included his costars America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, and Ryan Gosling — above.