LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: One of the most anticipated summer releases, ‘Barbie’ opened in theaters with rave reviews from the audience and critics alike. While it is not surprising that the Margot Robbie-starrer is winning the hearts of cinemagoers all over the world, Dua Lipa’s role in the film surprised many. Lipa, 27, who has sung a musical number ‘Dance the Night’ in the official ‘Barbie’ soundtrack, has also acted in the film.
However, to the chagrin of many, the ‘One Kiss’ singer has a paltry 30-second skit in the 114-minute Greta Gerwig directorial, as per The Sun. In the span of those 30 seconds, the British-Albanian singer speaks only 16 words, two of which are uttering the name ‘Barbie’ itself.
The talented songstress, who plays the Mermaid Barbie, has a total of five cameos. While the others are almost blink-and-miss, the most prominent one is her giving out a beer to John Cena’s merman.
The ‘Cold Heart’ singer is said to be taking “baby steps” in acting. In an interview last year, she was found saying, “For me it’s like baby steps,” per The Sun. She added, “That’s also just the best way to discover yourself as well, rather than throwing yourself in the deep end with something that maybe you can’t completely tackle head-on.”
“I think my biggest fear would be taking on a really big role and being, like, ‘F***! — now I have to be an actor and feel these emotions and feelings on camera,’ when I haven’t brought myself up to that point yet,” she concluded.
Nevertheless, it is good that she has finally decided to get into acting as it will give her fans even more reasons to celebrate the talented artist. Talking to Vogue in July, she showed her excitement to be in the movie, as minuscule as her role may be, saying, “I loved being in the movie because it was just so exciting to be a part of something so special like this with an incredible cast,” before adding, “I feel lucky that [director] Greta Gerwig asked me to be the mermaid.”
Apart from Lipa, 'Love Island’s Chris Taylor appears in the movie for two seconds as a version of Ken, while Welsh actor Rob Brydon’s Ken has a total of six seconds.
The ‘camera roll’
On Friday, Lipa shared an Instagram carousel with a slew of pictures from her phone. She captioned the post as “Camera roll randoms 🫶🏻.” One photo in the cluster of images caught everyone’s attention as it is a mirror selfie with the cast of ‘Barbie’ from the Los Angeles premiere.
The photo includes stars like Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Hari Nef, America Ferrera, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans and Simu Liu - all playing different versions of Barbie and Ken.
Other photos included her selfies and the picture of a rack of books that includes Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita'.
Dua Lipa's fans impressed by the 30 seconds
A fan praised the 'Barbie' makers by saying, "I LOVEEE how prominent Dua is in the barbie promo. unlike most pop stars who get treated like a side character, they’re REALLY pushing Dua like she’s got a main role!" Another simply remarked, "Dua “not apart of the movie or the Barbie brand” Lipa."
A fan complained on her Instagram post, "Why were you in the Barbie movie for 3 seconds i went to see you." Another said, "You ATE w that 30 seconds of screen time you had in barbie." Someone else commented on the group selfie saying, "Imagine being so famous that you have a causal picture of Ryan gosling in your camera roll."