Mark Ronson Speaks About His Oscar Nomination For ‘I’m Just Ken’

Mark Ronson is no stranger to writing hit movie tracks, the songwriter received his second Oscar nomination for best original song “I’m Just Ken” for Barbie. Ronson was previously nominated and won in 2019 for his song “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. 

After receiving news of his nomination, Ronson spoke to The Hollywood Reporter. When asked how he found out the songwriter replied, “I was actually on a plane and I suddenly got all this barrage of texts from people and at the same time, and I had a feeling it was something to do with the nomination. My one-year-old daughter was sleeping right next to me on the plane, so I was just, like, obviously holding it all inside. She’d just gone to sleep, so my wife’s just looking at me like, ‘Don’t you dare.’ But it was, of course, super exciting.”

Once Ronson read the script for Barbie, he was immediately hooked, “When I put the script down, I came up with that idea, ‘I’m Just Ken… anywhere else I’d be a 10,’ and wrote at the piano. And then my songwriting partner, Andrew [Wyatt] came in and we finished it together. We sent this very rough demo to Greta, who just loved it. And then played it for Ryan, who was really into it and was like, ‘Yeah, I want to sing this in the film.'”

When asked about the impact the song has had on audiences and reception, Ronson replied, “[…] what’s been so crazy lately is hearing from a lot of my friends who have boys who are just watching that sequence over and over again. You only have to listen to one podcast to know that there’s sort of this crisis with boys in the Internet era and how that can breed this insane isolation and loneliness, and I think Greta’s delivered this beautiful message in this film that counters that, and we just put it to music. And obviously, the song is for everybody. We didn’t just write it to be for boys or men or whatever. It’s like the movie — it’s for everybody, but that’s been a nice little unexpected side thing of it.”

When asked how we felt about going up against Billie Eilish and Finneas for their song “What Was I Made For?” Ronson sung their praises and commended the song, “They’re brilliant songwriters, and they wrote really such a poignant, introspective song for the film, and we wrote the sort of triumphant song. They have the introspective one, and they’re both great in the film, and it’s at this point now, it’s sort of up to everybody else to decide. “