He wasn’t feeling Kenasy.
Ryan Gosling almost didn’t perform his hit song “I’m Just Ken” at this year’s Oscars ceremony, but he revealed that he was persuaded to do so because of his daughters’ love for Barbie.
The Canadian actor, who co-starred with Margot Robbie in this summer’s hit movie, initially told the Academy he wasn’t interested in performing live because he didn’t know what would happen.
“100 percent, no,” Gosling said during an appearance on the show Thursday night. The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
“There’s a lot of things that could go wrong.”
Gosling, 43, ultimately agreed to perform the show, which included surprise appearances by backup dancers, musician Mark Ronson and legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash.
The performance received hundreds of millions of views on social media, Spotify, and Apple Music.
Gosling was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the Greta Gerwig film.
The father of two later spoke about what it was like to take his daughters to rehearsals for his much-talked-about performance.
“My dad is Kenin again,” Gosling joked.
The Golden Globe winner shares two girls with his “Place Beyond the Pines” co-star Eva Mendes.
Gosling took his daughters, ages 7 and 9, to watch him play characters inspired by Mattel dolls to explain what their father did.
“It all started with their interest in Barbie and indifference to Ken,” the actor who plays Ken admitted.
“It was really a team effort. They were in the movie and even came to the set when I shot the number,” Gosling said. “Also, a lot of this seems to have no context to them, just a bunch of fake tan marks around the house.”
He said his performance last month was the first concert for his daughters, but admitted that they know more about the choreography and songs than he does.
Gosling, who hosts Saturday Night Live for the third time on Saturday, said Gerwig offered him the role of Ken after previously appearing on the long-running sketch show.
“Alex Moffett wrote this sketch called ‘A’. A man who just joined SOHO House” “The first line was something like, ‘Sergeant Blackout is reporting for spoils,'” he recalled.
“Who would have thought that Greta Gerwig would be watching that and saying, ‘That’s my Ken?’
“Thank you, Alex, for finding me a job.”
