Dan Levy Reveals He Had to Turn Down Role of Ken in ‘Barbie’: ‘Sometimes’ It Haunts Me

Dan Levy says he’s “sometimes” still haunted by the fact he had to turn down a role in Barbie.

In a new interview with People, the 40-year-old actor reveals that he had a chance to play one of the Ken roles in the Greta Gerwig blockbuster, but due to scheduling conflicts he couldn’t make it work and, thus, was forced to turn down the role of a lifetime. 

“Logistically, could not make it work despite desperately trying to,” he shares with the magazine. “So, yeah, I guess I was technically unavailable to do that.”

Barbie dominated the box office in 2023 behind a star-studded cast that included Margot Robbie, Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Michael Cera, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu and Hari Nef. The film — going head-to-head at the box office with another juggernaut in Oppenheimer — would go on to rake a whopping $155 million on opening weekend. After it was all said and done, Barbie hauled in more than $1 billion at the box office. The film also scored two Golden Globes, and there’s also growing Oscar buzz.

So, yeah, it’s safe to say Levy’s bummed, to say the least, that he had to miss out on all of that. It still haunts him, he says, but only “sometimes.”

“Does it haunt me when I sleep at night? Sometimes,” he says. “It’s not like it isn’t one of the biggest movies of all time. That was a tough day.”

It was especially tough for the Schitt’s Creek star because he’s a huge fan of Gerwig.

“I think Greta has such a, like, wonderfully bizarre and magical aesthetic idea of what that movie was,” he said. “I would have loved to play in her world. I think she is one of the great, young auteurs of our time.”

Maybe Levy will be available for Barbie: The Musical?

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