Helen Mirren Thinks People Need To Chill Out Over Those ‘Barbie’ Oscar Snubs

If you built a time machine, journeyed back even two years, and told whoever you found that a movie based on Barbie, the beloved if sometimes controversial doll line, would Hoover up eight Oscar nominations, they wouldn’t believe you. And yet here we are. Greta Gerwig and her cowriter/now-husband Noah Baumbach thought way outside the box, and somehow Mattel and Warner Bros. let them put it on-screen (with some battles, of course). But while their screenplay is among those up for prizes, Gerwig missed out on Best Director (again) and star Margot Robbie was snubbed, too. Lots of people freaked out. One of the film’s supporting players did not.

That person is Helen Mirren, who is never seen on-screen, doing narrator duties instead. Entertainment Tonight caught up with her Thursday, asking her if she was also incensed that it didn’t get 10 Oscar noms. She was not.

“You can’t get upset about things like that, honestly,” Mirren said. “What is fantastic is that Barbie was the highest-grossing film that Warner Brothers has ever had in their lives and do you remember who won best film of the year before last”

The answer to that, of course, is Everything Everywhere All at Once, which also took home a slew of other trophies, including for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. It also made a ton of money, if nowhere near the haul amassed by Barbie. Still, point taken.

Not that Mirren wouldn’t have minded Barbie getting even more AMPAS love.

“I mean, of course I would have loved to have seen Greta [be nominated], and I think she should win best [director]. It’s so difficult, it’s not a running race, you know, you can’t — Christopher Nolan’s work on Oppenheimer was spectacular, extraordinary. But for me, Greta’s work was so out there, it was so brave, it was something we’d never seen before,” she explained. “I just love the fact that the audience responded the way they did.”

It’s worth noting that both Gerwig and Robbie have seemed pretty chill about being left out. Both are nominated anyway, Gerwig for Adapted Screenplay, Robbie for Best Picture, since she’s one of the producers. But if Gerwig, who became the fifth woman ever to be nominated for Best Director (for Lady Bird), is snubbed a third time, then we riot.

The Oscars go down on March 10.