Like so many other people, I had the odd experience of watching Kingsley Ben-Adir play the villain in a Marvel show and one of the Kens from Barbie one right after the other. And honestly, my effect was diluted, because I wasn’t able to see Barbie until a few weeks after it was released—when it first came out, episodes of Secret Invasion were still dropping! I rewatched Barbie recently, and it reminded me that this dichotomy might be the starkest demonstration I’ve ever seen that a role’s size matters far less than its content.
I’m hardly alone in saying I was disappointed in Secret Invasion, for so many reasons. I won’t rehash all that again, but one of the things I’d been anticipating about the show was seeing Ben-Adir as Gravik. I knew how talented he was—I’ve seen One Night in Miami—but for me, this was another area where the series disappointed me. Not because Ben-Adir gave a bad performance, but because the character of Gravik gave him so little to hold onto. In fact, the few scenes where he really got to shine just highlighted how much he was wasted on the show.
In contrast, we have Barbie. Now, Ben-Adir plays probably a second-tier Ken—obviously less prominent than Ryan Gosling’s, and less than Simu Liu’s as well. But that doesn’t hold him back in the slightest, because he’s an utter delight every time he’s onscreen. Whether he’s holding Gosling-Ken’s ice cream, gagging at the sight of Robbie-Barbie’s flat feet, or serenading a Barbie on the trap set while the rest of the Kens play guitar, he makes the most of every moment, effortlessly funny and memorable.
How can that be? With only a handful of lines and reaction shots in a single blockbuster, how can Ben-Adir make a bigger impact than as the main antagonist with multiple monologues in a six-episode TV series? Simply put, Ben-Adir’s Ken is a great example of a side character functioning perfectly within a story. He improves every scene he’s in without stealing focus, and even with a thin characterization, everything he does totally tracks with who he is. Meanwhile, Gravik never really gets off the ground as a character—his motivations come too late and feel too small, and a number of his actions conflict with one another. Ken is a terrific sandbox for Ben-Adir to play around in, but Gravik is just dead weight pulling him down.
This isn’t the first time I’ve thought that supporting roles don’t have to be lesser. For example, one of my favorite Tony Leung Chiu-wai roles is still his performance as Broken Sword in Hero, and there’s no other role in the film I’d have rather seen him play. I’ve been semi-obsessively writing up Favorite Characters posts for Our Flag Means Death, and no matter how little screentime the various crew members get, each one embodies their character fantastically. But the contrast between these two roles makes the point so clearly, and the fact that they were released on top of one another heightens it even more.
As an offshoot of this notion, I saw some chatter after Barbie came out that Ben-Adir should’ve had Liu’s role as the rival to Gosling-Ken. That definitely would’ve been a bigger role for him, and I don’t doubt that he could’ve been a lot of fun in it. But personally, I wouldn’t have wanted to give up his hilarious, winning performance as his Ken. I wouldn’t trade a moment of that sweet, dumb guy asking the other Kens to guess what bird he’s thinking of (“Pelican,”) or proudly asserting, “I have hats”—more screentime as a different character wouldn’t have been worth it when he’s so good as this one.
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