Though the Barbie movie was both a critical and commercial success, according to co-star Issa Rae, everything on the set was not all roses.
In speaking with The Hollywood Reporter about predictions for the upcoming 2024 Grammy Awards, the “Insecure” star revealed she had a difficult time learning the choreography for the film’s big dance sequence to “Dance The Night” as performed by Dua Lipa.
“Dancing to it was my worst nightmare,” Rae said. “It was the worst day of my life. It was the best day of my life being on that set. It was exciting, and then literally the first day, I had to learn the choreography to shoot the [following] day. And it was terrible.”
According to Rae, a big part of the reason she found the dance number so difficult is because they had to learn the routine to an at the time unfinished song.
“We also didn’t have the lyrics to the song,” she said. “[Filmmaker Greta Gerwig] was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a Dua Lipa song,’ But all we had was the instrumental, so I was just like, ‘What the f— is this? What am I dancing to?’ ”
The Mark Ronson-produced song has gone on to become a bona fide hit, garnering a Grammy nod alongside three other songs from the soundtrack, Ryan Gosling’s “I’m Just Ken,” Bille Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” and the Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice collab “Barbie World.” Rihanna’s “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is also nominated along with the Barbie tracks.
In true “rooting for everybody Black” fashion, Rae has already singled out her hopeful winner among the bunch.
“And for that, I want ‘Barbie World’ to win because I didn’t have to dance to that,” she teased.
The 66th Annual Grammy Awards will take place on Feb. 4, 2024, at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena.
