Ryan Gosling

• 1. Introduction

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  Ryan Thomas Gosling threw steak knives at other children during recess in grade one. He had taken them from home after watching the action film First Blood, convinced that this was how a tough kid behaved. The incident ended in suspension. It also, in its strange way, signals something about the actor he would become: a performer willing to inhabit extremes, to commit fully to a character even when the results are unsettling.

  Born on the 12th of November 1980, at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ontario, Gosling grew up in a family that moved frequently because of his father's work as a travelling salesman for a paper mill. He lived in Cornwall and Burlington, Ontario, was bullied through elementary school, and had no friends until he was fourteen or fifteen. He was unable to read at age ten and was pulled from school so his mother could teach him at home for a year. He has described that experience as giving him "a sense of autonomy that I've never really lost".

  From those unpromising beginnings, Gosling built one of the most varied careers in contemporary Hollywood, collecting three Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and performances that drew comparisons to Marlon Brando and Steve McQueen. How a kid from Ontario who threw knives and dropped out of high school at seventeen got from a Disney television set to the stage of the Academy Awards is a story worth following closely.

• 2. A Mouseketeer from Ontario

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  Gosling's first serious ambition as a performer came from watching Dick Tracy as a child. His sister was already a performer, and together they sang at weddings. He performed with his uncle's Elvis Presley tribute act and joined a local ballet company. Performing was the only activity for which he received praise, and it rebuilt the confidence that had been stripped away by years of bullying.

  He developed an unusual accent deliberately. As a child, he felt a Canadian accent did not sound tough enough, so he began modeling his speech on Marlon Brando. The affectation became permanent.

  At age thirteen, he successfully auditioned for Disney Channel's The All New Mickey Mouse Club and was given a two-year contract as a Mouseketeer. His parents had just divorced, and he moved to Orlando, Florida to film the show. He appeared on screen infrequently because, by his own account, other cast members were considered more talented. Among those cast members were Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Keri Russell, and JC Chasez. He has nonetheless described those two years as the greatest of his life, crediting the experience with instilling in him "this great sense of focus."

  After the show ended in 1995, he returned to Canada for television work, then at age eighteen moved to New Zealand to film the Fox Kids adventure series Young Hercules as the title character. He played the role through 1998-1999, but as the work continued he found himself caring too much about the show for it to remain enjoyable. He wanted to spend time sitting with a character and devising it, not simply delivering episodes. That restlessness drove him toward film.

• 3. The Believer and the Early Films

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  Aged nineteen, Gosling arrived in film with a specific ambition: he wanted to do "serious acting." His first obstacle was the stigma attached to children's television. His agent dropped him, and early film work was hard to find.

  The role that changed everything was Danny Balint in 2001's The Believer, a young Jewish neo-Nazi whose self-hatred drives him toward extremism. Director Henry Bean said he cast Gosling because his Mormon upbringing helped him understand the isolation of Judaism. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the performance "electrifying and terrifyingly convincing." Todd McCarthy of Variety described it as a "dynamite performance" that "could scarcely have been better." The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Gosling has described The Believer as "the film that kind of gift-wrapped for me the career that I have now."

  The film's controversial subject matter made a full theatrical release impossible to finance, so it was broadcast on Showtime instead. It grossed $416,925 worldwide against a production budget of $1.5 million, a commercial failure by any measure. But the critical response was transformative.

  In 2002, he co-starred in the psychological thriller Murder by Numbers, in which he played one of two high school seniors who believe they can commit the perfect murder. The film grossed $56 million worldwide from a production budget of $50 million. Also in 2002 came The Slaughter Rule, where working opposite David Morse led Gosling to say Morse made him "a better actor." Stephen Holden of The New York Times called him "major star material" with "a rawness and intensity that recall the young Matt Dillon." The film was released in just three US theatres and grossed $13,411.

• 4. The Notebook and Its Complications

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  Filming for The Notebook took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in late 2002 and early 2003. The film paired Gosling with Rachel McAdams in a romantic drama adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel, directed by Nick Cassavetes. Gosling played Noah Calhoun, a character he tracked across a time span from 1940 to 1946, and he sought to model the role on Sam Shepard's performance in Days of Heaven. Shepard himself co-starred in the film.

  The relationship between the two leads on set was, by Gosling's own description, antagonistic. "We inspired the worst in each other," he has said. "It was a strange experience, making a love story and not getting along with your co-star in any way." At one point, he asked Cassavetes to bring someone else in for his off-camera shots because he felt McAdams was uncooperative. They became romantically involved in 2005, after the film had wrapped and been released.

  When the film opened in 2004, it grossed over $115 million worldwide. The New York Times praised the "spontaneous and combustible" performances of the two leads. Gosling won four Teen Choice Awards and an MTV Movie Award. Entertainment Weekly has described the film as containing the All-Time Best Movie Kiss.

  For Half Nelson in 2006, Gosling played a drug-addicted junior high teacher who forms a bond with a young student. He moved to Brooklyn for a month before shooting and spent time shadowing an eighth grade teacher. Roger Ebert wrote that the performance "proves he's one of the finest actors working in contemporary movies." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times described it as "a mesmerizing performance that shows the kind of deep understanding of character few actors manage." Gosling earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. The film grossed $4 million at the worldwide box office, and in 2007 he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

• 5. Range and Risk

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  In Lars and the Real Girl (2007), Gosling played an introvert who falls in love with a sex doll, drawing inspiration from James Stewart's performance in Harvey. Roger Ebert wrote that Gosling had turned "a film about a life-sized love doll" into "a life-affirming statement of hope" through "a performance that says things that cannot be said." The film failed to recoup its $12 million production budget.

  Also in 2007, he starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in the courtroom thriller Fracture. He had originally turned down the role but changed his mind when Hopkins signed on. Claudia Puig of USA Today declared that watching Hopkins "verbally joust with one of the best young actors in Hollywood is worth the price of admission." The film grossed over $91 million worldwide.

  His most bruising professional experience of that period came from a film he did not make. Cast as the father in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, Gosling gained 60 pounds (27 kilograms) and grew a beard to appear older. Two days before filming began, he was replaced. Producer Fran Walsh had concluded he was not right for the role. Gosling later reflected: "I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong. Then I was fat and unemployed." He has described the experience as teaching him "not to let your ego get involved. It's OK to be too young for a role."

  Drive (2011), directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, cast him as a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a getaway driver. Roger Ebert compared him to Steve McQueen. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote of "the ongoing mystery of how he manages to have so much impact with so little apparent effort" and likened his economical style to Marlon Brando. The film grossed $81 million worldwide from a $15 million budget. That same year, Blue Valentine, a mostly improvised marital drama made for $1 million, grossed over $12 million worldwide.

• 6. La La Land and the Barbie Phenomenon

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  In 2015, Gosling played a bond salesman in The Big Short, a Best Picture nominee at the 2016 Academy Awards. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described him as "a virtuoso of verbal sleaze" who "talks directly to the camera" and is "volcanically fierce and funny." David Sims of The Atlantic felt it was "wonderful to see him cut loose again" after years in art cinema.

  Damien Chazelle's La La Land followed in 2016, and the film became one of Gosling's most commercially successful, earning over $440 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy and received his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Robbie Collin praised his chemistry with co-star Emma Stone, writing that both actors were "so attuned to each other's pace and flow that their repartee just seems to tumble out, perfectly formed."

  In 2017, he starred as Officer K in Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, a sequel to the 1982 Blade Runner, co-starring Harrison Ford, who reprised his role as Rick Deckard. A. O. Scott found Gosling perfectly cast, writing that his "ability to elicit sympathy while seeming too distracted to want it" makes him "a perfect warm-blooded robot for our time." Despite being Gosling's largest domestic box office opening at $31.5 million, the film generally underperformed.

  In 2023, he played Ken in Greta Gerwig's Barbie alongside Margot Robbie. He sang "I'm Just Ken" for the film's soundtrack and covered "Push" by Matchbox Twenty. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker called his performance "peak Gosling." Barbie became his highest-grossing release. He performed "I'm Just Ken" live at the 96th Academy Awards, where it was nominated for Best Original Song, and he received Golden Globe, Critics' Choice, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and Academy Award nominations for the role.

• 7. Dead Man's Bones

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  Gosling and his friend Zach Shields first met in 2005, when Gosling was dating Rachel McAdams and Shields was dating her sister, Kayleen. They initially conceived a monster-themed musical but concluded a stage production would be too expensive. They formed a band instead, calling it Dead Man's Bones.

  The two recorded their debut album with the Silverlake Conservatory's Children's Choir and taught themselves every instrument. Gosling contributed vocals, piano, guitar, bass guitar, and cello to the record. The album was released through ANTI- Records on the 6th of October 2009. Pitchfork Media called it a "unique, catchy and lovably weird record." Spin felt the album "doesn't reverse the rule that actors make dubious pop musicians," and Entertainment Weekly criticized its "cloying, gothic preciousness."

  In September 2009, the band held a three-night residency at Los Angeles' Bob Baker Marionette Theater, performing alongside dancing neon skeletons and glowing ghosts. They then conducted a thirteen-date tour of North America in October 2009, using a local children's choir at every stop. Instead of an opening act, each night featured a talent show. By 2011, Gosling was already discussing a second album, noting that no children's choir would appear on it because "it's not very rock 'n' roll."

• 8. Off-Screen

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  Gosling bought Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills, on an impulse. He has said he spent "all his money" on it, spent a year doing the renovation himself, and now oversees the menus.

  His relationship with The Notebook co-star Rachel McAdams lasted from 2005 to 2008. He has been with The Place Beyond the Pines co-star Eva Mendes since September 2011. When asked in a 2022 interview whether she and Gosling had married, Mendes said, "I like to keep it all mysterious." They have two daughters, born in 2014 and 2016.

  His charity work has taken him far from film sets. In 2005, he volunteered in Biloxi, Mississippi, in the clean-up effort after Hurricane Katrina. That same year, he traveled to Darfur refugee camps in Chad. He returned to the continent in 2007, visiting Uganda, and again in 2010, traveling to eastern Congo, as part of his work with the Enough Project. He is a supporter of Invisible Children, Inc., which raises awareness about the Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa. In 2026, he produced and starred in Project Hail Mary, based on Andy Weir's science fiction novel, which received critical acclaim for his performance.