Margot Robbie was apparently “mortified” by Barbie set-leaks

Has any movie ever dominated the news cycle so far in advance of its release quite like Greta Gerwig’s Barbie? The magenta-hued film, which is not slated to premiere until July 2023, has gone viral again and again (remember when Ryan Gosling wouldn’t stop talking about “Ken-ergy”?), but never with quite as much fervor as with those original set-leaks. You know the ones: Targaryen-haired Gosling and Margot Robbie are roller-skating in the tackiest, brightest, most ‘80s outfits imaginable. In the background, it looks like all of Los Angeles has come out to gawk at the odd couple. Everything is so, so neon; they may have even helped inspire a real-life fashion trend.

Margot Robbie’s reaction to the photos was not as fawning as the rest of the internet’s. “I can’t tell you how mortified we were, by the way,” the actor said of the leaks in a recent appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. “We look like we’re, like, laughing and having fun, but dying on the inside. Dying. I was like, this is the most humiliating moment of my life.”

When Fallon asked if she knew the photos would “go everywhere,” Robbie responded with an emphatic “no.”

“I mean, I knew that we had some exteriors to shoot in L.A.,” she said. “I knew, OK, once you were doing exteriors, you’re gonna get papped. There’s probably going to be a little crowd of people who are going to stand out, because, you know, we stand out a little bit in those outfits. So I knew there was going to be a little bit of attention, and probably some photos would get out there, but not like it did. It was like mad. It was like hundreds of people watching.”

While Warner Bros. has been keeping the plot of Barbie under strict lock and key, rumors have long been swirling that the film will follow Robbie’s character as she escapes from “Barbieland” and learns how to navigate the real world. Is Barbieland anything like Hollywoodland? Will life really imitate art? We will just have to wait and see.

You probably shouldn’t crash any future shoots but if you do happen to stumble on one, just be sure not to confuse Robbie with her co-star Emma Mackey. Or Issa Rae, or Hari Nef, or anyone else in this movie’s insanely stacked cast.

Barbie premieres July 21, 2023.