Meet Ryan Gosling: Hollywood’s hottest young actor.
From his Oscar nominated performance in 'Half Nelson' to his heartbreaking turn in 'Lars and the Real Girl', Ryan Gosling’s best work, with one exception, has come in the world of American independent cinema. That exception is the hugely popular weepie, 'The Notebook', in which Gosling co-starred with his future girlfriend, Rachel McAdams (the actor also dated Sandra Bullock when they filmed 'Murder by Numbers' together in 2002).
Remarkably, the supercool Canadian started out life as a member of TV’s 'Mickey Mouse Club', alongside such future luminaries as Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Though all the above have since tried their hand at movies, it’s Gosling who has really shone on screen, courtesy of some spellbinding performances in low budget but well received films.
That trend continues with Derek Cianfrance’s superb 'Blue Valentine', a wrenching portrait of a marriage in which Gosling plays blue-collar worker Dean, who falls for and then marries Cindy (Michelle Williams). In the week of its DVD release, 30-year-old Gosling tells us about working on the movie and his career to date
Though 'Blue Valentine' is a low budget, quirky tale, you must be pleased with how well it punched above its weight during the awards season?
Yes, for a film like this, for a film so small, these things are very helpful. They make up for the lack of printed advertising money that you don’t have. A lot of people will go see a film because it’s being acknowledged on that level. It’s very helpful for our movie. That’s what happened with 'Half Nelson', for sure. As soon as all that stuff starts happening, it gains awareness for the film that you can’t afford, so it’s great.
'Blue Valentine' is a love story but perhaps not an obvious one to bring a date to see...
I would! I think it’s very romantic. Back home, they call it an ‘anti-love story’. The filmmaker [Derek Cianfrance] started writing this all of twelve years ago. He said he wrote it as a reaction to all these films he was watching, which seemed like the actors were carved out of marble and made in the image of gods. He wanted to make a film that was made in the image of man. It’s our faults that make us special and human. The characters in this film couldn’t embrace each other’s faults because they were trying to live up to some idea of perfection that only exists in movies. I think that it is romantic to acknowledge those faults.
Talk to us about working with writer/director Derek Cianfrance
It feels like I had been dreaming that this person would come into my life and would want to work this way. Making films you’re always thinking ‘couldn’t we try it like this?’ or ‘couldn’t we shoot it this way?’ or ‘does it have to work like this?’ I like filmmakers that are willing to dismantle the whole idea of the process. Derek always treated the filming process like the convention of making films was like a big monster hand that was always trying to get its grasp on us. We were always outrunning it. He did so many interesting things.
For example?
For instance, at the beginning of the movie when I’m waking up, he set up the cameras in the living room that night, and I went to sleep and I woke up and the crew had all snuck in and they were filming me sleeping. And then my little girl woke me up and we went out into the yard, and there were cameras in the forest filming us – there was so much thought put into what would be the most fruitful environment to put us in.
You filmed the story in two separate parts – the present and the flashbacks
Yeah. To shoot all the beautiful stuff first, the falling in love, was like a dream. And then having built this castle we had to tear it down. But when we were tearing it down, we knew what we were losing because we’d already built it. It would be hard to go back and forth between time periods and shoot it, and be able to feel the weight of what you were losing if you didn’t know what that was.
How did it feel seeing the ‘old you’ and the ‘young you’ on screen?
We wanted to show the effects of time, and we wanted to show that we treat our characters like flags. When you see a flag, it’s torn at the edges because the wind is beating it down and the sun has made it lose its colour. We wanted to show the erosion of time on our characters. That’s just part of the job, I guess.
Does it make it easier to do a film like this with an actress like Michelle Williams by your side?
Yeah, I don’t think I could’ve done the film without her. She was on this for six years. Even though I didn’t know her, I knew who she was because of that level of commitment. So when we started making the film, we had that trust between one another because we’d each proven our dedication to the project over that time.
Was it easy to create that raw level of reality with Michelle?
Derek had a lot of clear ideas that would help us achieve that. The years that we were prepping our characters, Michelle and I never talked about the film. We never met. We had one dinner. We really met each other on camera, in character. So when things are happening for the first time for the audience, they’re really happening for the first time for us as well.
But you’d seen a finished script?
Well, no. We knew that eventually we’d do this part of the film where we’d be living together. We knew what the scenes were. But within each scene, the director would give us a point A and a point B, but how we got there was up to us. You could draw a line between those two dots – and it could be a squiggly line, it could be any colour you wanted it to be, but you had to get from one point to the other. So you never really knew what the other one was going to do, it had a life of its own. He wrote like 75 drafts, and a manifesto. But when we got on set, he said, ‘The script is 12 years old. It’s dead to me. If you say any of the lines, you’ll bore me. Action!’
Was it difficult putting on the weight to portray your older self on screen?
For the latter part? Yeah, we both tried to put on some weight. I was supposed to put on a lot of weight but I got concerned that people would walk out of the film and feel like ‘If he hadn’t have let himself go, it would’ve worked out. If he’d just hit the treadmill, he would’ve been fine.’ So we didn’t want it to be too extreme. Michelle and I had an eating contest – Michelle won!
How do you feel about gaining weight for a role?
I did it for 'The Lovely Bones'. I was 150lbs and I went up to 210lbs – and I never even shot it! It was terrible! I was fat, bald and unemployed, walking around the yard. It was not a fun time. And it’s not good for you. I don’t know how Christian Bale does it. It’s incredible what he does. Really, I’m in awe of his commitment. But it’s your job. Every job has its downside, and that’s a downside for this job.
Is authenticity important to you?
Most movies pretend to know everything and don’t ask many questions. They’re just telling you how it is. When I was growing up I loved movies, but these people weren’t anything like the people I knew. I happened to think the people I know are more interesting than they are in movies, for the most part. Then I started watching [John] Cassavetes movies and I started realising that there are filmmakers out there who are trying to honour how complicated people really are. I just think as an actor it’s more interesting to play those characters, who are more interesting than heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys. The people I grew up around were good people doing bad things, or things that were out of character. That’s another thing that I’ve learned on a film – I did something one time that was out of character. Actors spend all of their time going – ‘Who’s the character? What does he look like? How does the character dress? How does he think? How does he talk? How does he walk?’ And it’s all about being the character. I did something one day that was out of character, and the script supervisor was really upset with me. And something interesting happened – she thought she knew him better than I did. I thought if you could leave the audience feeling that way, feeling they knew the character better than you, you could have passed the character on. Now they take ownership of him and they take him away from you. So I started trying to do that after that, trying to work things into my characters that were out of character – so the audience didn’t trust me to play him, and they would think they knew him better than I did.
Having done this movie, 'Half Nelson' and 'Lars and the Real Girl', do you feel like you’ve served your time in independent film?
I love those films. It’s not that I want to make small movies that no one ever sees. Every time I make these films, I really think they’re going to be bigger than 'Avatar'. It never happens, but every time I’m sure that this is the one. Films like 'The Blair Witch Project' instigate that because it makes me feel that it’s possible to make a small movie that resonates and becomes successful. And that would be my dream – to make a small movie that did that. It would be so good, that would be the special effect. The authenticity. It would feel like you were watching it in 3D. And then everyone would want to run and see it and that would be like some kind of big hit.
Next up for you is George Clooney’s film, 'The Ides of March'. What can we expect from that?
It’s an ensemble piece. My character is the one who takes this downward spiral. He’s an idealist but he loses his idealism, and he becomes involved in the dirty pool of politics that he swore he would never do. I’m a huge fan of George and Grant Heslov, his partner, who did two of my favourite TV shows. The first was Unscripted, where they find all these real actors who are trying to make it in Hollywood, and they infuse the narrative into their life. And also they did a show called K Street, which was improvised and very experimental. They had a lot of really interesting ideas. I’ve been working with George a little bit now and he’s got so much enthusiasm. There’s nothing he hasn’t thought of. It’s infectious!
