Michael Cera personally emailed Greta Gerwig to arrange a cameo in the 'Barbie' movie - after his manager nearly "blew it" for him.

The 35-year-old actor has told how his manager initially said he "probably wouldn't want to" appear in the Gerwig-directed film because he didn't think the star would be keen on going to London to shoot the motion picture.

In a video interview with GQ magazine, Cera said: "It was a kind of very last-minute casting.

"My manager got a call checking on my availability for it, and he called me and he said, ‘I got a call about this movie. It’s the 'Barbie' movie.

"Greta Gerwig’s directing it, and it’s filming in London for four months of something, so I told them you probably wouldn’t want to do it because you probably don’t want to go to London.'

"I was like, ‘What! Call them back!’ He didn’t like blow it or anything, but he’s like, 'I managed their expectations that you might not want to do it.' I was like, 'How can I not do it? I need to do it!' "

But Cera then took matters into his own hands and personally dropped Gerwig an email to arrange a cameo in the film, which featured Margot Robbie in the titular role.

He added: "I somehow got Greta’s email address, I think through a common friend of ours, and I emailed her like, ‘Can I be in it? Can I do that part?'

"And she was like, ‘Let’s get on a Zoom right now. Here’s a Zoom link, I’ll be on there for the next hour.’

"So she was just hanging out on the Zoom, like, ‘Click the link whenever you’re ready.’

"And then we talked about it, and it just all happened really fast from there."