Fans who have been eagerly awaiting the release of the "Barbie" movie know that Gerwig was extraordinarily thorough when it came to informing her cast about the movie's major influences; during shooting, they all attended a weekly screening of a film that Gerwig said inspired "Barbie," an event later referred to as "movie church." Along with classics like "His Girl Friday" — which Robbie and Gerwig have both said helped inform the pitter and patter of "Barbie's" dialogue — the gang also watched "Singin' In the Rain" and "Oklahoma!" to see how classic movie musicals also influenced "Barbie." Gerwig told EW that, in the vein of these movie musicals, each dance sequence was meticulously planned in a very unexpected way.
"In terms of how [the actors and dancers] moved and how they behaved, I wanted it to feel heightened, but I didn't want it to feel like a sketch," Gerwig told EW. "In soundstage musicals like 'Oklahoma!' or 'Singin' in the Rain,' there's a quality in the way people move." Gerwig really is a perfectionist... and as a result, every single background performer is a dancer as well.
"So all the Barbies and Kens you see on the beach [and other dance sequence settings] hold themselves differently," she said. "Our choreographer said dancers, their bodies always have a direction that's different [from] normal people. So that was kind of like in this conception of Barbie Land, it's like a soundstage musical."
