Barbie star Ryan Gosling has revealed the true meaning of “Kenergy”.
The Canadian actor coined the term earlier this summer while promoting the year’s biggest – and pinkest – film, which has topped the 2023 box office chart with takings of $1.4bn (£1.1bn).
He has now attempted to define “Kenergy” and its associated verbs (“Kenning”, for example) after admitting it had “haunted” him for much of the year.
Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie at the London premiere of Barbie earlier this year
Gosling said: “What is ‘Kenergy’, other than a word I made up on a press junket, so I didn’t have to really answer any questions, that’s haunted me ever since?
“It’s a noun, that I’ve come to understand as the strength and vitality required for a sustained period of ‘Kenning’.
“What’s ‘Kenning’, other than another random word I made up?
“It’s a verb. To Ken is to give more than is necessary or required to reflect so that others might shine.”
‘His life changed forever’
Gosling, who starred as Ken opposite Margot Robbie‘s titular doll, was speaking at music awards show Hitmakers in Los Angeles.
He was there to present music producer and writer Mark Ronson with soundtrack of the year for his work on Barbie, which included the I’m Just Ken ballad performed by Gosling.
Gosling hailed Ronson as a prime example of the “Kenergy” he has spent the year trying to explain.
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The actor added: “Up until six months ago, the entire world gave zero f**** about Ken. He was just this 70-year-old crotchless doll with no house, no car, no job, and no voice, and look at him now.
“He has a Grammy-nominated power ballad and the voice of an angel. What happened? It’s simple.
“He met Mark Ronson, and his life changed forever.”
Barbie is also the UK’s biggest film of the year so far and contributed more than £80m to the country’s economy, having predominantly been filmed in Hertfordshire.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, it is the highest-grossing film ever helmed by a woman.
For many cinemagoers, it served as one half of an unlikely double bill with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer after a social media craze that drove one of the biggest surges in ticket sales since the COVID-19 pandemic.