 Ryan Gosling stars in "The Notebook"
Photo © New Line Cinema Ryan Gosling Takes a Turn at Playing the Romantic Lead in "The Notebook"
Ryan Gosling’s earned quite a reputation as one of the most promising actors by starring in such heavy dramatic movies as "The Believer," "The United States of Leland," and "Murder By Numbers." Now with his part in “The Notebook,” Gosling tackles something he hasn’t played on screen before – the role of romantic leading man.
INTERVIEW WITH RYAN GOSLING:
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done for love?
I don't know. I think that maybe it's this film.
Who were you trying to impress with this?
Oh, I don't know. My mother.
Had you read the book before shooting this movie? What was the attraction to this role?
I hadn't read the book. It was so different from anything that I'd done up
to that point. The character was very different as well. I felt that it was
a very important character for me to play.
What’s the key to keeping a love story fresh?
Well, we weren't trying to reinvent anything here. I liked
the character. I knew that the story was pretty sort of an old fashioned
love story, but I thought that he was pretty interesting. I don't know much
about it, and I haven't seen too many films in this genre. It's kind of interesting though because my crazy behavior is romantic. Whereas in any other film, if you've got a character who wrote three hundred and sixty five letters to a girl that he barely knows - all of them unreturned - and then
builds a house for her, and he really doesn't know her anymore and then
essentially pretends that he lives in the house with her, they're going to
lock this guy up in any other movie.
Did you research the 1940s and did having the story set in that era make it easier to play the role?
It made more interesting to play, I think. I don't think that
its because it was the 40s. I think that there's just something about
this genre where it allows for that kind of character. I feel like I've
played characters with that kind of passion before, but their passion is
always repaid with jail time or death. So in this one, he gets the girl and
that's the way that it ought to be, if you ask me.
Did you have to throw logic out the window and play it as a fairy tale?
Yeah. Well, it's a fairy tale to me. I think that when I've
heard stories like that, I've always kind of thought of them as science
fiction, really. But there's a challenge in trying to find the truth in
that. I thought that was interesting for me.
When Rachel McAdams auditioned with you, did you know right away she was the one for the part?
I think that it's pretty fair to say that we probably
wouldn't have made the film if we hadn't found Rachel. It was something
that was really a stretch for me and I was telling Nick [Cassavetes] that I
was really the wrong guy for the movie. And he didn't seem to think so, and
he had a lot of convincing arguments. I said okay. Really, Allie drives the
movie. It's her movie and we're in it. It all kind of depended on an
actress.
Why didn’t you think you were right for the part?
I'm just not like a romantic lead, and I've never really done
that kind of thing. The whole thing just felt completely like I was the
wrong guy for it. But Nick explained to me.
When you auditioned with Rachel, was that the moment you knew it was going to work?
Yeah. I don't know anything about women and I don't think
that Nick does either. And all of these girls who were coming in, we
weren't making the film, we were just sort of auditioning to see if we
could find a girl and all of the girls, some of them were really good, but
they all kept asking us what we thought, like, “What do you think I should
do? What do you think?” We were like, “I don't know. The only thing I know
about women is that they're all different. So don't ask me.” And so Rachel
sort of came in at the end and she was the only one who when we
asked if she had questions, said no. We said, “Do you know this girl?” She
said, “Yeah.” We said, “Do you want to talk about her?” And she said, “No.
Lets just do it.” We were like, “Whoa,” and she wiped the tears off of her
face and left. We said, “Okay, there's the movie. The movie is her.”
PAGE 2: Ryan Gosling on Great Loves, Nick Cassavetes, and Buffing Up for the Part
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
"The Notebook" World Premiere Coverage
"The Notebook" Credits, Trailers and Interviews
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