Transcription
Every time something like this happens, my mother calls every kid that used to beat me up and she's like, "Remember Ryan? You used to beat him up, huh? Well, he's Hercules now. You just shut up."
This man was never supposed to be a movie star.
That's the best part about Los Angeles. Everyone's left their family, their homes, their jobs to pursue a dream where they know that the percentage of them achieving that dream is never. And no one's sure if it was a premonition or a delusion. And there's only one way to find out.
He couldn't read. He had no friends. And now after three Oscar nominations and zero wins, not only could this be the role that gives him the Oscar he's been chasing, but this might be the best Ryan Gosling movie ever made. And what was amazing was, you know, it was very difficult on every level to shoot this film. I've never worked on a film more difficult. Maybe I and I probably never will.
But how how did Ryan Gosling go from a troublemaker kid to growing up and rising up everybody's mothers and wives and becoming so famous that he literally had to quit acting? Ryan Gosling is taking a break from acting. He just wants to take a break.
Gosling is taking a break.
Gosling tells the Associated Press that he's taking a break from acting because he's been too active in it and he's lost perspective on what he's doing.
But most importantly, why the heck does this man feel so freaking relatable to all of us?
You keep saying you're Ryan Gos.
I really am.
He's literally me. He's literally me. I'm standing here on the international border between Canada and the US. Just over this bridge is my hometown, Cornwall, Ontario. It's the 1980s and Ryan Gosling is in Ontario, Canada, living with his Mormon family. His dad is a traveling salesman for a paper mill and his mom was a secretary. But growing up as a kid, this guy sounded like a straightup mischief child.
Okay, so like when I was a kid, I saw Rambo First Blood. The movie put a spell on me and I and I thought I was Rambo. I even thought my face felt like uh Sylvester Stallone's and I put a bunch of steak knives in my Fisher Price Houdini kit. I took it to school the next day and I threw them at all the kids at recess.
He got suspended. His parents was terrified and they said, "Yeah, this kid could never watch a movie again." So from that point on, he was only allowed to rent Bible movies and National Geographic documentaries from the library. When this guy hit 14 or 15 years old, this kid was getting bullied constantly, and he struggled so bad with reading that the school wanted to test him for ADHD. Even his mom had to quit her job and homeschool him for an entire year. But then his sister would completely change everything for him because she was a pure performer and she got him into singing and dancing. So him and his sister would sing together at weddings and perform Elvis Presley tributes. The guy even got into ballet with his sister. They were basically the real life version of Sharpi and Ryan from High School Musical. And for the first time in his life, instead of being the troublemaker child that everyone hates, he was now the lead boy dancer on a girl dancing team. I was on some Canadian star search and uh I somehow made it to the finals. They let me dance there for free because I was a guy.
Eventually, he would change his own voice because he had a Canadian accent and he thought it wasn't tough enough. And then he would drop out of high school so he could pursue a career in acting. But in 1993, when Ryan Gosling was 12 years old, he got an opportunity to audition for Disney Channel. And this is what changed everything. Elana, Ricky, Christina, Mark, Nita, Ron.
He landed a role on the Mickey Mouse Club, a new show featuring talented kids like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake. But during the second year of the show, Gosling's mom had to go back to Canada for work. But Ryan needed to stay in Orlando to work on his show. So Justin Timberlake's mom basically had to become Ryan Gosling's mom.
His mother had to keep her job in Canada the second year that we were on the television show. and my mom was his guardian for like six months and so we actually lived together when we were that age.
But then something happened after the show got cancelled in 1995. Gosling went back to Canada. And honestly, this is when most people would have just faded away because at this point he was just a former child star from a cancelled Disney Channel show. But instead of giving up, this is where he made the decision to drop out of high school and completely just go all in on acting. But here's the problem. When he tried to transition to serious film work, nobody wanted him. He got dropped by his agent. And because he used to be a child TV star, it made it nearly impossible for him to get anyone to take him seriously. But when he turned 19, things started to change because he landed a role in a movie called We Will Be Perfect in every aspect of the game. You drop a pass, you run a mind.
Now look, even though he just had a small part in this movie, landing Remember the Titans with Denzel Washington is a big freaking deal. And that was just enough to land him in another movie called The Believer. Take the greatest Jewish minds ever. Marx, Freud, Einstein. What have they given us? where he plays a Jewish neo-Nazi. The film would go on to win the grand jury prize at Sundance, and even Ryan Gosling himself said this was the movie that set him up for success in his life. After an exhaustive search, the filmmakers took a gamble on an unknown actor who seemed in many ways completely wrong for the part.
The very, very last person who comes in is Ryan Gosling. He's 19. He hasn't read the script and he is completely wrong in every way imaginable for this part.
I don't know. I don't know how I got this wrong. trying to convince them that I could do it, but more importantly trying to convince myself.
But here's the thing. Even after this amazing performance, he couldn't get Hollywood to fully believe or commit to him. Because even though everyone was starting to recognize how incredibly talented this guy was, his name or his movies wasn't big enough to bring money in the box office, and that's all these studios freaking care about. But in the year 2004, a director named Nick Civetes took a gamble on this man that would not only change his entire life forever, but it would end up making the most famous romance movie of all time. What do you want?
It's not that simple.
What do you want?
The Notebook. A movie that no major actor wanted to play and pretty much everyone was shutting it down because no one wanted to just be a guy who was madly in love with no real character arc. George Clooney, Tom Cruz, even freaking Britney Spears was supposed to be in this movie.
I tried to call you to tell you that I wasn't going to stay, but nobody answered the phone.
I told him I'd marry him and and I want to marry him. I really do. Then I saw your picture in the paper and I knew I had to see you again because we never really finished things. Not really.
But then Civvetes calls Ryan to his house and when Gosling showed up and seen the director in the backyard, the man told him straight to his face.
I met Ryan first and after meeting him, I said I didn't want to make the movie without uh without him in the movie. I wasn't 100% sure at that time that I was making the movie. So I said I told him that I said I don't know if I'm going to make this movie or not, but I know I don't want to make it without you. And he said, "Well, if you want to make it with me, then I'll make it." And I said, "Okay, let's do it. The best case goes to Rachel McAdams and Ryan.
GET UP HERE.
COME ON.
LOOK,
it was my pleasure. Because not only did the movie go on to make $115 million in the box office and be probably the most quotable, famous, watched romance film of all time, but the craziest part about all this is that Gosling and Rachel McAdams absolutely hated each other.
Now I hate you, you son of bastard.
If you leave here, I hate you.
Ryan Gosling tried to get Rachel McAdams fired.
Gosling even asked the director to bring in someone else for his off camera shots because he felt McAdams was being impossible to work with. They had a screaming match so bad that the director had to take a break to go and meditate somewhere.
Did you just stay with me?
Stay with you? What for? Look at us. We're already fighting.
Well, that's what we do. But guess what happened after this movie stopped filming? They fell in love in real life and they started dating. And from that point on, this man just went on one of the most incredible acting runs of all time. Half Nelson, Fracture, Lars and the Real Girl, Blue Valentine, Drive, Crazy Stupid Love, The Eyes of March, The Place Beyond the Pines, which my god is one of the most underrated movies of all time. It's also the same movie where he met his wife, Eva Menddees. Like for real, if you haven't seen it, stop watching this video and go watch it right now. What a good movie. Gangster Squad, The Big Short, The Nice Guys, La La Land, which in my opinion is one of the best freaking movies ever made. Bladeunner 2049, which was even better than the original movie, First Man, The Greyman, Barbie, The Fall Guy. He's even getting his own Star Wars movie directed by Shawn Levy called Star Wars Starf Fighter. But despite this unbelievable run of amazing films, zero Oscars, only three nominations, one Golden Globe. But after this movie, I think that's all about the change. Project how Mary is based on a book made by a guy named Andy Weir. My boy's name is one letter away from being weird, but don't let that fool you. This man knows how to cook up a story. The same guy who wrote the book The Martian, that would also turn into a movie, which is also another binger. And the screenplay for this movie was written by Drew Goddard. the same guy who adapted The Martian into a movie and got an Oscar nomination for it. It's directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the guys who gave us 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie, and the freaking Spider-Verse films. It's even being shot by cinematographer Greg Frasier, the guy who filmed Dune and The Batman. I mean, just look at this freaking film team we got over here. It's like an NBA All-Star team. But not only that, Andy Weir, the writer of this story, literally based the main character off Ryan Gosling. even basing the main character's name, Ryland Grace, off of the same initials as Ryan Gosling. I'm not sure if Project Tell Mary is going to get him the Oscar he's been chasing after. And without even seeing this movie yet, if this movie doesn't do it, I don't know what will. But you know what? Who the heck cares? Because Ryan Gosling is the only actor in Hollywood that has the ability to make you feel like you are him. So, even though Ryan Gosling still refuses to eat his bowl of cereal, and even though there's a lot of other talented actors out there, this is the only man that can make us all.