Hari Nef’s Heartwarming Letter to Greta Gerwig About Being Cast in ‘Barbie’

Acknowledging that the people involved with the film, including Gerwig and Robbie, “played no small role in cultivating my love of sitting in the dark in front of big screens for an hour or two,” Nef said that that was only a part of her need to be in the film. “Identity politics and cinema aren’t my favorite combination, but the name BARBIE looms large over every American woman,” she wrote. “Barbie’s the standard; she’s The Girl; she’s certainly THE doll.”

Nef added that her and her “other transgender girlfriends” started calling themselves “the dolls” a few years ago, while noting the terms’ roots in ballroom culture. 

“Maybe it’s a bid to ratify our femininity, to smile and sneer at the standards we’re held to as women,” she wrote. While the term is somewhat of a joke, Nef said, the term also alludes to “the shape of a woman who is not quite a woman — recognizable as such, but still a fake.”

“‘Doll’ is fraught, glamorous; she is, and she isn’t,” Nef wrote. “We call ourselves ‘the dolls’ in the face of everything we know we are, never will be, hope to be. We yell the word because the word matters. And no doll matters more than Barbie.”

Nef’s casting was first announced about a year ago as part of a diverse and star-studded ensemble. While Margot Robbie has long been confirmed as the main Barbie and Ryan Gosling the main Ken, Nef was previously rumored to be one of several Barbies, alongside Insecure creator Issa Rae. Simu Liu and Ncuti Gatwa are also rumored to be playing different Kens. And judging from the graphic that Nef shared, which specifies that her Barbie is a doctor, it seems that the multiverse is once again set to take over summer blockbusters. 

This article originally appeared on Them.