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Taylor Swift had the most Taylor Swift reaction to Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s Barbenheimer-inspired rendition of “All Too Well.”
“All Too Well (Ryan and Emily’s Version) !!! Watch me accidentally catch myself singing this version on tour,” Swift, 34, tweeted on Sunday, April 14, just hours after the actors sang their own cover of the fan-favorite during Gosling’s monologue on Saturday Night Live. “This monologue is EVERYTHING 👏👏.”
While Gosling, 43, was on hand at SNL to promote The Fall Guy, his new movie with Emily Blunt, he first had to say an official farewell to his beloved Barbie character, Ken. In doing so, he paid tribute to both the doll and Swift and by belting out the Ken-ified version of Swift’s “All Too Well,” which included lyrics like, “Oh that sweet definition of my washboard abs / Singing Indigo Girls in the car with Babs” and “‘Cause here we are again on our technicolor beach / I didn’t win the Oscar, it was just out of reach.”
Halfway through “All Too Well (Ken’s Version),” Gosling was ambushed with a surprise appearance by Blunt — who portrayed Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty, in the eponymous film. The actress gave him a gentle ribbing about the competition between their two hit movies before joining him for their own version of the bridge of the song.
“‘Cause here we are again back in 2023 / with the Barbenheimer summer / It was just you and me,” they sang in unison.
Getty Images/Jeff Kravitz
While Gosling’s monologue ultimately ended with Ken’s (literal) flame never going out — thanks to a trick Ken prayer — the actors’ rendition of “All Too Well” was a fitting end to what NPR hailed “The Year of the Girl,” which was heavily influenced by the wild success of Barbie, Swift’s Eras Tour, and Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour. All three pop culture juggernauts embraced the celebration of girlhood and both the unabashed reality, double standards and still joy of being a woman in the 21st century.
Swift, for her part, is embarking on the final legs of her Eras Tour in the coming months, with shows in Europe, the U.K., the U.S. and Canada — not to mention the highly-anticipated release of her new studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, which drops this Friday, April 19. Beyonce, meanwhile, just made history with her country album, Cowboy Carter, which punched a much-needed hole into the country genre by injecting the celebration of Blackness in the genre. The album, which received acclaimed reviews, just spent a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.