“The path of the Reluctant Movie Star has been well worn at least since Brando, but few have walked it as doggedly and resolutely as Gosling,” writes GQ correspondent Brett Martin. All of Ryan Gosling’s roles, with the exception of The Notebook, have been “small, odd, and metaphysically mysterious.” Even his two latest movies, All Good Things and Blue Valentine, “do little to alter the perception that he will only do those things that appeal to his own, confident sense of what’s worth doing.” The two spent time together at some of Gosling’s favorite L.A. spots, including the Magic Castle and The Varnish, discussing family (he comes from a “family of believers”) and his various jobs outside of acting (including working at a local deli). Gosling says his latest film (with rumblings of an Oscar nod), Blue Valentine, is the best he’ll ever make.
Ryan Gosling on his family’s willful suspension of disbelief:
“My mother still believes in Santa Claus. We tried to break it to her once, but she wasn’t having it. There are very few believers in the world, but my mother is one of them. I don’t know if she’d admit that this is why she does it, but it’s just more fun to believe in Santa than not to.”
… on why he got a job at a deli after his Hollywood hit, The Notebook:
” ‘I’d never had a real job,’ he says. The problem with Hollywood, he goes on, is that nobody works. ‘They have meals. They go to Pilates. But it’s not enough. So they do drugs. If everybody had a pile of rocks in their backyard and spent every day moving them from one side of the yard to the other, it would be a much happier place.’ ”
… on expecting retribution from his success:
“Look, this is crazy. I don’t understand how I’m here, living this life, wearing this suit. I assume I’m going to pay for it someday … And that’s okay. It seems fair to me. I just want to be ready for it. I want to meet it like a gentleman.”
PHOTO | MARIO TESTINO FOR GQ