Award-winning actress America Ferrera wears many hats. She’s well known and loved for long-running roles in series like Ugly Betty and Superstore, but even beyond that, Ferrera is a business person, which may account for her instincts when trusting co-writer and director Greta Gerwig and star and producer Margot Robbie when they sent her their script for Barbie.

While part of the movie takes place in Barbie Land, a world of pink, plastic fun, Barbie (Robbie) and Ryan Gosling’s Ken also journey to the real world, where they’re confronted with the harsher realities of humans. One of those humans is Ferrera’s Gloria, a mother and hard worker. Though she’s lower on the food chain, Gloria has dreams of playing a much larger part in her workplace, aspirations Ferrera herself worked hard to make realities. In an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Ferrera discusses the accomplishments made on the set of Barbie while working with fellow producers, creators and actors like Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon and Simu Liu.

During their conversation, Ferrera also talks about why Gerwig’s vision for Barbie changed her perspective on the brand and what nostalgic treasure from her childhood still has a lasting impact today. Find out more about that and what Barbie means to Ferrera now, check out Perri’s interview in the video above the article, or in full transcript form below.

PERRI NEMIROFF: I had one of my favorite reactions to this film; I walked out thinking, “How does this movie exist?” So what is something you accomplished while making Barbie that would make young you first starting out in this business say, “I cannot believe that will be possible one day, and I’m so glad it is?”

AMERICA FERRERA: Me being in a Barbie movie! [Laughs] That’s not something I ever imagined or thought possible for myself. Mainly because I wasn’t a Barbie girl, I didn’t grow up playing with Barbies. It didn’t resonate with me. The fact that there’s a Barbie movie and that the story has shifted and expanded to include more of us to be able to be seen in that iconic and very culturally dominant brand, that’s very unexpected and not something that I ever thought I would say that I was a part of.

I kept thinking about how the movie heavily emphasizes the fact that no matter what toy you had as a kid, it could stick with you as an adult and still feel like some sort of relative form of self-expression. So if Barbie was not your go-to, what was the go-to toy, maybe one that you find yourself thinking about and influencing how you feel about yourself today?

FERRERA: I have a really strong vision of when I got a Kaboodle. Do you remember Kaboodles?

I do remember those!

FERRERA: [Laughs] … for Christmas. And I remember feeling like that was the status marker of my life. I had a Kaboodle! I’m sure my mom got it at, like, Rite Aid, but it was everything to me! And I put everything in that Kaboodle. I spent a lot of time. I wonder what a Kaboodle movie would be like. I don’t know. I don’t think we need that movie. Who knows! Who knows what we need? [Laughs]

If it’s bold and has a strong voice like this movie does, sign me up for literally any toy adaptation at this point.

FERRERA: Oh, that’s awesome.

Image via Warner Bros.

Mine’s the Jurassic Park toys because I loved them as a kid and now I watch my niece playing with them, and it’s just the best one-two punch in the world.

FERRERA: That is the thing of growing up and having kids, and nieces, and watching how they connect and resonate to the same things that we did and how they’re legacy toys, legacy brands. What is so exciting to me about getting to be a part of this is this is, in a lot of ways, shifting the brand, shifting the narrative of what the Barbie world is and who gets to be a part of it, and what it means! I think as a kid, what didn’t resonate with me was that Barbie was perfection and I was not perfect. But that’s not what Barbie means today, and that’s not what this movie means. To me, what Barbie stands for now is embracing your joy and your expression, and that embracing that doesn’t have to be at odds with everything else that you are.

Exactly. I feel like I came at Barbie the same way, so seeing something like this makes me very happy.

I want to highlight Greta for a minute. You’ve worked with many great directors. Do you notice there being a shared quality among the directing greats that signals to you they’ll be a great collaborator for you, but then also for Greta, what is something that makes her stand out from the bunch?

FERRERA: Greta’s just incredible, and I think the amazing talent that came to this film came for Greta, for her vision, for how wonderful she is to work with. I think that the quality that is shared with the directors that I’ve had the best time with and have produced my best work is trust. Me trusting them and them trusting me, and I think Greta put together an incredible team of artists in every department and she had a very strong vision, but she also knew to then trust the people she chose to come to the party and give us the freedom to do our best work inside of the world that she made.