Barbie: Trans star Hari Nef wrote emotional letter to Greta Gerwig after being cast

Hari Nef is grateful to Greta Gerwig.

The 30-year-old trans actress took to Instagram following the release of the first Barbie trailer, to share an emotional letter she wrote to Gerwig before being cast.

In an addendum, Nef explained that she was previously uncertain about being in the film due to scheduling conflicts. However, because she wanted to be a part of the ensemble cast anyway, the actress wrote a letter to the director as well as Margot Robbie.

“This is a big movie, made by a team whose work has played no small role in cultivating my love of sitting in the dark in front of big screens for an hour or two. But that’s just a part of why I want–my heart says “need”–to join in the making of this film,” the letter read.

The Transparent alum noted that although “identity politics” meshed with cinema "aren’t my favorite combinations,” “the name BARBIE looms large over every American woman.”

She continued: “Me and my girlfriends–okay, yeah, me and my other transgender girlfriends– we started calling ourselves “the dolls” a couple of years ago, though the phrase stretches back into the language of our foremothers in the ballroom scene. 'The Dolls.’”

“Maybe it’s a bid to ratify our femininity, to smile and sneer at the standards we’re held to as women,” she suggested. “It’s a joke, of course. We throw our voices: ‘the do-o-lls!’ But underneath the word ‘doll’ is the shape of a woman who is not quite a woman – recognisable as such, but still a fake. ‘Doll’ is fraught, glamorous, she is, and she isn’t.”

“We call ourselves ‘the dolls’ in the face of everything we know we are, never will be, hope to be. We yell the word because the word matters. And no doll matters more than Barbie,” Hari added.

Nef is set to play the rendition of Barbie who’s a doctor among many different ones in the upcoming film.

Barbie will release on June 21 worldwide.