Barbie director Greta Gerwig reveals she rejected ‘terrifying’ idea for Margot Robbie film

Director said the suggestion sounded like a ‘nightmare’

Barbie director Greta Gerwig has said she shut down early conversations that would have given her actors computer-generated feet.

Since the trailer for Gerwig’s highly anticipated comedy romance movie about the popular Mattel doll was released in April, its clip of Margot Robbie’s character Barbie standing on her tiptoes with perfectly arched heels has wowed the internet.

The fan-celebrated shot is a nod to the famous doll’s plastic classic posture, where her feet are shaped as if they were perpetually wearing high-heeled shoes.

During a recent appearance on the Australian talk show The Project, Gerwig, 39, revealed that there “was a big discussion in the beginning” as to whether she was going to “CGI all the feet”.

“I thought, ‘Oh god, no! That’s terrifying! That’s a nightmare,’” the Ladybird director said. “Also Margot has the nicest feet. She has these beautiful dancer feet. She should just hang on to that bar and do it just like this.”

Last week, Robbie, 33, shared the secret behind the viral scene, explaining how she managed to accomplish the “genius” pose.

“They are my feet,” the Australian actor confirmed to Fandango, adding that it only took “probably about eight takes, wasn’t that many”.

“I walked up, we had little sticky bits on the floor – double-sided tape – for the shoes, so they wouldn’t come off. So that I could get my feet out of them. And I was holding on to a bar, but that’s it,” Robbie explained nonchalantly.

“I wasn’t in like a harness or anything. I just walked up and kind of held onto the bar above camera.”

Margot Robbie and viral ‘Barbie’ scene (Getty Images and Warner Bros)

With Barbie releasing in cinemas on 21 July, the same day as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, eager fans are preparing to see them back-to-back.

Gerwig and Robbie not only joined the double feature trend – coined Barbenheimer – but they also accepted Tom Cruise’s challenge to take it two steps further.

In photographs shared on Twitter on 30 June, the Barbie duo proudly held out movie tickets while standing in front of film posters for Nolan’s war drama, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Cruise’s Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.

“Mission: Accomplished!” the caption reads.

Their support comes in response to Cruise, who had done the same days earlier, only he had swapped his newest Mission Impossible instalment for Barbie.