Michael Cera has taken cinemas (and the internet) by storm as the awkward, rainbow-shirted Allan in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie—but apparently, we were all perilously close to a world without this magical performance. Speaking with GQ, Cera revealed that he personally emailed Gerwig asking about the role after his manager told the film’s casting team that he probably wouldn’t be interested. “He called me and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie. It’s the Barbie movie, Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months, so I told them you probably wouldn’t want to do it,” Cera recalled. “I was like, ‘What? Call them back!’” The actor clarified that his manager didn’t “blow it or anything” but was simply managing expectations. But as he put it, “How could I not do it? I need to do it!” From there, Cera recalled getting Gerwig’s email address through a common friend. “I emailed her like, ‘Can I be in it? Can I do that part?’” The two hopped on a Zoom call that same day, and the rest is Barbie history.