Ryan Gosling's Private Notebook
Canadian transplant Ryan Gosling is an ex-Mickey Mouse Club member — just like Britney, Justin and Christina — who's quite the up-and-comer in Hollywood. Moviegoers best know the 23-year-old as a psycho teen in 2002's Murder by Numbers with Sandra Bullock (whom he dated offscreen). He's also been evil in The United States of Leland and Showtime's The Believer. To our surprise, he's now playing a (non-homicidal) hopeless romantic in The Notebook. There's a switch!
"I'm just trying to play as many characters as I can before they pull the plug on me," he laughs. "So whatever happens, happens."
Gosling says his role as Noah in Notebook — which is based on Nicholas Sparks' lovey-dovey bestseller — was a sweet change. "It seems to me that crazy behavior is romantic," he muses. "In any other movie genre, you get a guy who writes 365 letters to a girl he doesn't even really know, builds a house for her and pretends he lives in the house with her — this guy's gettin' locked up! But for some reason, in the romantic genre, that's romantic.
"I've played characters before who were equally passionate," he notes, "but that passion either gets them jail time or they die. In this one, I get the girl. I just thought, 'This is the way it ought to be.'"
In real life, Gosling's a guy who keeps his feelings more low key. "My idea of romantic is somewhat different from Noah's idea of romantic," he grins. "Do I personally keep a diary? No, I don't. I like a big meal and gettin' my girl to rub my belly after. But they don't make movies about that stuff."
