Ryan Gosling surprises filmmaker Greta Gerwig with a special birthday gift: a 'Barbie' flash mob

Ryan Gosling sent his Barbie director Greta Gerwig a very special 40th birthday present on Friday (4 August).

“As Kens know…. Sometimes the only way to express your feelings is through song & dance,” the official Barbie account shared.

“Ken Ryan sent these special Barbies and Kens to start Greta’s birthday with all the feelings!!”

The account shared a video of Gerwig participating in a Pilates class when suddenly a flash mob of dancers arrive and perform a routine set to Gosling’s song from the movie, “I’m Just Ken”.

A visibly bewildered Gerwig is seen wiping tears from her eyes as the dancers perform before hugging them once the routine is complete.

“Who do you think sent them?” the person filming asks, to which Gerwig exclaims: “I have no idea!”

“Think of a bagpiper,” her friend responds, prompting Gerwig to burst into laughing and bury her face in her hands.

This image shows Ryan Gosling (left) and Margot Robbie in a scene from "Barbie." AP

The bagpiper refers to the time Gosling surprised Gerwig and his Barbie co-stars by sending a Scottish bagpiper to their sleepover, after he was unable to attend.

“This man, this Scottish man in a full kilt, showed up and played the bagpipes,” Gerwig explained in an interview with GQ. “Then he read a speech from Braveheart. And then he left.”

Barbie has gone from strength to strength, as it continues to dominate the US box office.

The comedy, which stars Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, took in a massive $93m (£72m) in its second weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday (30 July).

The film has also outpaced Christopher Nolan’s 2008 superhero film The Dark Knight to notch the best first two weeks in cinemas of any Warner Bros release.

It comes after Gerwig’s film broke the opening weekend record for a female director in the US. Patty Jenkins’ 2017 movie Wonder Woman held the previous record with a $103.3m (£80.3m) domestic opening.

Comedian and podcaster Marc Maron recently defended the film against right-wing men who were accusing the film of pandering to “woke” sensibilities.

“I saw Barbie and I thought it was a f***ing masterpiece,” he said in a TikTok video. “And like, I don’t throw that word around lightly, but, Jesus Christ.”

“It’s like it does a fairly amazing thing to create a sort of broad-based entertainment product that applies to the entire spectrum.

“I think primarily of women. And then just seep it in progressive politics and basic feminism in a way that’s funny, informative and well-executed in a context that is completely engaging is f***ing monumental.”

Maron pointed out that the film executes “feminist ideas in a way that’s funny”.

“And the comedy about men is inspired and the fact that certain men took offence to the point where they, you know, tried to build a grift around it in terms of their narrative as right-wing is so embarrassing for them,” Maron said.

The Independent