Director Greta Gerwig has revealed that she refused to use CGI to give the actors in the upcoming Barbie movie arched feet. This decision was made after early discussions about using CGI were met with horror by Gerwig and the rest of the creative team.

“Everyone said, ‘Are you going to CGI all the feet?'” Gerwig said in an interview. “And I thought, ‘Oh god, no! That’s terrifying! That’s a nightmare.'”

Instead, Gerwig decided to have Margot Robbie, who plays Barbie in the film, hold onto a bar off-camera to keep her feet arched. This took eight takes to get right, but Gerwig was adamant that she wanted the feet to be real.

“Margot has the nicest feet,” Gerwig said. “She has these beautiful dancer feet. She should just hang on to that bar and do it just like this.”

Gerwig’s decision to avoid CGI was made in an effort to capture the experience of playing with Barbie dolls as a child.

“Even though it’s this huge movie, it feels very personal to me,” Gerwig said. “It was made by so many people who cared about it. Even the Barbie logo that we used is the logo that I had as a child of the ’80s.”

Barbie is set to be released in theaters nationwide on July 21.