How Ryan Gosling Proved the Director of One of His Biggest Movies Wrong

Ryan Gosling has been a star for a long while now, as he has shown tremendous stamina while building his career and is arguably at the most successful point in his career right now because of it. Hot off the success of last year’s Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig and co-starring Margot Robbie, his latest film, The Fall Guy, has just kicked off the summer movie season in a big way. Over the last decade, he has worked with many of the hottest and most talented filmmakers in Hollywood, ranging from Denis Villeneuve to Damien Chazelle, Adam McKay, the Russo Brothers and, of course, Gerwig.

Despite this undeniable stardom at the moment, Gosling hasn’t always been viewed as a leading man. Early in his career, the actor actually landed some of his biggest roles precisely because he was viewed as an unconventional choice. One director in particular even went as far as telling Gosling this directly. Here’s how Gosling managed to overcome these doubts about him and become the star he is today:

The Notebook Director Didn’t Think Gosling Was a Star

The first major film of Gosling’s career was 2000’s Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington. Gosling played a minor role in the film, as he was one of the high school students on the football team coached by Washington’s Herman Boone. The role that would begin Gosling’s rise in Hollywood came the following year when he starred in The Believer, a film loosely based on the true story of a Jewish American who became a neo-Nazi. He was featured in a handful of movies in the years immediately following The Believer, but everything changed for Gosling in 2004, with the release of The Notebook.

Directed by Nick Cassavetes, The Notebook adapted one of Nicholas Sparks’s most famous romance novels from the mid-90s. Gosling starred alongside Rachel McAdams in the film, which went on to become one of the defining romance movies of the 21st century and shot both actors to stardom. However, when he cast Gosling in the lead role, Cassavetes did so precisely because he thought Gosling didn’t have the same aura as most movie stars in the early 2000s.

According to Gosling, the director told him plainly, “The fact that you have no natural leading man qualities is why I want you to be my leading man.” While the phrasing of “you have no natural leading man qualities” may be a bit harsh, this comment clearly was not intended as an insult to Gosling considering it’s why he got the role, though it is funny to look back on in retrospect.

Building His Reputation with Indie Films and Blockbusters

After the success of The Notebook, contrary to Cassavetes’ perception of him, Gosling would go on to become one of the most recognizable leading men of the late 2000s and 2010s. This success has also obviously carried over into the 2020s as well. While, with the exception of Barbie, his films may not be the billion-dollar grossers that top the box office every year, Gosling consistently gives excellent performances and has a keen eye for finding exciting and original films to work on, which has made him a bankable name and a mark of quality for most of the movies he is in.

Gosling has built this reputation by showing an unwillingness to pigeonhole himself into one kind of role. He followed The Notebook with Half Nelson, in which he played a drug-addicted middle-school teacher (and for which he received his first Oscar nomination). From there, he quickly diversified his career with thrillers such as Fracture and Drive and comedies like Lars and the Real Girl and Crazy, Stupid, Love. The kinds of characters that he has portrayed over the years have varied from romantics to bad boys, from psychopaths to stoic heroes, and from financial gurus to lovable dimwits. He has been able to establish this vast repertoire by taking on a wide variety of films without bias toward or against big-budget blockbusters or smaller indie features.

Throughout the early 2010s, Gosling continued to establish himself as a reliable leading man who could always be counted on, no matter the character. He primarily did this through smaller and more awards-oriented features like Drive, The Ides of March, and The Place Beyond the Pines. However, as the 2010s progressed, he demonstrated a willingness to take on more big-budget projects from the major studios. This was most prominent in 2016 and 2017 when he starred in both The Nice Guys and Blade Runner 2049 for Warner Bros.

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However, the catch was that both of these films were driven by incredible directors (Shane Black and Denis Villeneuve) and had excellent scripts. He also was reportedly in the running for the role of Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe around this time, before the part ultimately went to Benedict Cumberbatch. This new direction for Gosling didn’t mean he abandoned smaller projects though, as he also took on both Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and Terence Malick’s Song to Song in that same two-year period.

How His Career Has Evolved in the 2020s

Gosling’s final film of the 2010s came in 2018 when he portrayed Neil Armstrong in Damien Chazelle’s most underrated film, First Man. However, after that, it would be another four years before Gosling returned to the big screen in 2022. That return was in The Gray Man, co-starring Chris Evans, which was the first major action film to be directed by the Russo Brothers after they wrapped up their run with the MCU with Avengers: Endgame in 2019. This film was something new for Gosling, as it was one of the first straightforward action flicks that Gosling had done. Though the film may not have been received all that well, it was a smart career choice for Gosling as the Russos were one of the most buzzed-about directorial forces in Hollywood at that time.

Since then, Gosling has only been featured in two other feature films this decade, Barbie and The Fall Guy. When considering all three of these movies together and then comparing them to Gosling’s work in the 2010s, a clear shift presents itself. At the moment, it looks like Gosling is focusing his career on non-franchise blockbuster films from famous directors.

It’s a smart move that clearly shows he is making a run for blockbuster leading man status, which his hit-and-miss results at the box office have previously kept him from achieving. After working with the Russo Brothers, Greta Gerwig, and David Leitch on each of their latest blockbuster ambitions, Gosling’s star power is certainly on the rise. While the success of Barbie at the box office cannot be attributed simply to him, it is undoubtedly a boost to his career – with an Oscar nomination on top of that.

The next film on his docket looks to continue this director-centric blockbuster trend he is embracing. While Gosling had been set to team with horror director Leigh Whannel on a new adaptation of The Wolf Man next, that collaboration ultimately, and unfortunately, fell through. Now, Gosling has his sights set on Project Hail Mary, the latest film directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller – also the first they’ve personally directed since 2014’s 22 Jump Street (the Solo: A Star Wars Story debacle notwithstanding).

Not just that, but it’s an adaptation of The Martian author Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods, World War Z, The Martian, and Netflix’s Daredevil). With talent like that behind the camera, Project Hail Mary could prove to be another great step in Gosling’s incredible career.