Michael Cera would be up for a Barbie spinoff focusing on his character, Allan.
The actor stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, where he discussed Greta Gerwig’s eight-time Oscar-nominated film and his now-beloved take on Ken’s best friend.
“[It was an] amazing thing to be a part of,” he told Jimmy Fallon of being in the biggest film of 2023. “I mean, I couldn’t believe that I had a chance to be a part of it. It just came out of nowhere for me. I think I was like a last-minute replacement of someone, the person they actually wanted.”
Cera was right. Barbie casting directors Allison Jones and Lucy Bevan revealed that Jonathan Groff was the first person they approached to portray Allan in the film. They explained to Vanity Fair that Groff couldn’t take the role because of scheduling conflicts. “Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I can’t do Allan,’” Jones told the publication.
When the late night host asked Cera about the rumors of a possible Allan spinoff, the actor was surprised that people had been speculating about that.
“I think it would be kind of a weird movie, but I’m there,” he said. “He’s kind of like an inactive character. He kind of just stands [there]. For me, the biggest inspiration for the character was Hans Moleman, that character in The Simpsons. He just stands there all the time. For me, that’s like the core of the character.”
The Superbad star also shared that the fight he has with the Kens in the movie — when he’s trying to escape Barbieland, then known as Kendom, with American Ferrera’s Gloria and Ariana Greenblatt’s Sasha — was last minute.
The fight wasn’t in the script, and he wasn’t trained or prepped for it. He and his family had just gotten over COVID, so he was still recovering when they filmed it. He got winded simply doing the warm-ups with the stuntmen and had to lie down for two hours.
Elsewhere in his appearance on The Tonight Show, Cera discussed his Super Bowl ad for CeraVe, which sees the actor try to claim he created the moisturizer and named it after himself.
“They came up with the whole idea,” the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World star said of the CeraVe team. “I have the last name Cera, as you know, and so I think I was the only actor that they approached for that. Fortunately for me.”
He pointed out he normally doesn’t get approached about commercials like this because, usually, sharing them on social media is a big part of the deal, and he isn’t on any platform. But his last name made him the only choice for it.
The CeraVe campaign stretched beyond just a Super Bowl ad. There was also marketing involved that included him signing autographs at places like CVS. “They were like, ‘We want people to think you’re crazy,’” Cera said of the strategy. “And I was like, ‘Great.’”