Ryan Gosling Surprises Greta Gerwig With ‘Barbie’ Flash Mob to Celebrate Her Birthday

Greta Gerwig’s birthday gift from Ryan Gosling is more than Kenough! Friday, as the Barbie director celebrated her 40th birthday with what she assumed was simply her Pilates class, Gosling turned the day upside down with a Barbie-themed flash dance, featuring various Barbies and Kens dancing to hit songs from the Margot Robbie-led film. 

“As Kens know…. Sometimes the only way to express your feelings is through song & dance!
Ken Ryan sent these special Barbies and Kens to start Greta’s birthday with all the feelings! @bookaflashmob @heymarkavery [camera] @christinecrais,” the caption on the video posted by the official Barbie Instagram account Saturday read.

The Oscar-nominated director can be sitting on a reformer machine in the video, shocked as she sees a group of Kens enter the room gradually to perform Gosling’s wildly popular “I’m Just Ken” number, which recently landed itself on the  Billboard Hot 100 chart. As the dance begins, Gerwig can be heard saying in disbelief, “Oh my god.” Just when the flash mob looked like it could be over, Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night,” also from the Barbie soundtrack, began to play as a group of Barbies took their turn entering and performing the dance from the film. At the end of the birthday flash mob, Gerwig clapped with joy, marking the conclusion of a one-of-a-kind gift.

Gerwig has more than just her 40th to celebrate. In the three weeks since its debut in theaters, Barbie has surpassed $1 billion in global ticket sales, becoming the first movie directed solely by a woman to hit the box office milestone. The Oscar-nominated director now holds the box record for women directors, which was last set in 2017 with Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, which brought in more than $800 million. As of Sunday, Barbie has earned about $1.03 billion, according to Box Office Mojo, joining just 53 movies that have ever made over $1 billion without inflation adjustments. 

When it comes to the next move for the Little Women and Lady Bird director, Gerwig is embracing the success of the now. “At this moment, it’s all I’ve got,” she recently told the New York Times. “I feel like that at the end of every movie, like I’ll never have another idea and everything I’ve ever wanted to do, I did. I wouldn’t want to squash anybody else’s dream but for me, at this moment, I’m at totally zero.”