Director Greta Gerwig has revealed that she initially planned on reuniting with Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan on her latest feature, Barbie. However, the reunion between the filmmaker and the actors, who appeared in her previous two Oscar-nominated films, Lady Bird and Little Women, ultimately didn’t pan out.

The Golden Globe-nominated filmmaker opened up about wanting Chalamet and Ronan to appear alongside Margot Robbie, who plays the titular Barbie in the anticipated fantasy comedy.

“Well, it was always going to have to be a sort of smaller thing because [Saoirse] was actually producing at the time, which I am so proud of her for. And of course, it’s brilliant. But it was going to be a specialty cameo,” Gerwig told CinemaBlend during a recent interview.

“I was also going to do a specialty cameo with Timmy, and both of them couldn’t do it and I was so annoyed. But I love them so much,” the helmer, who also co-wrote the script for Barbie with her partner, Noah Baumbach added. “But it felt like doing something without my children.

I mean, I’m not their mom, but I sort of feel like their mom.”

Chalamet has been busy playing Willy Wonka in Wonka and shooting Dune: Part Two. Ronan, meanwhile, is occupied producing her first movie, The Outrun, which is adapted from the 2016 memoir by Scottish journalist and author Amy Liptrot.

Ronan also spoke to People last fall about her planned Barbie cameo. “I was supposed to do a cameo because I live in London and they were [filming] there. There was a whole character I was going to play — another Barbie. I was gutted I couldn’t do it.”

Barbie, which is set to open in theaters this Friday, July 21 by Warner Bros., features an ensemble cast. Besides Robbie, who previously worked with Ronan on the 2018 period drama Mary Queen of Scots, Barbie also stars Ryan Gosling, Simu Liu, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Ariana Greenblatt, Emma Mackey, Michael Cera, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Rhea Perlman, Ncuti Gatwa, Emerald Fennell, Sharon Rooney, Scott Evans, Ana Cruz Kayne, Connor Swindells, Ritu Arya, Jamie Demetriou and Marisa Abela.