What People Who Have Worked With Ryan Gosling Said About Him

In The Place Beyond the Pines, Gosling plays Luke, who starts stealing to help his family. He is pursued by Avery, a police officer played by Bradley Cooper. Cooper and Gosling have only one scene together in the film, but it's a knockout.

Cooper went on the record to say how talented and professional Gosling was:

He far surpassed what I had hoped for. It felt like I was getting in the ring with a real motherf*cker. He's generous and sweet and no-bullsh*t and he had no weird antics - he just works the way I like to work, too. I thought, ‘This just feels like home.’

During a publicity interview for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Gosling and Simu Liu, who plays one of the other iterations of Ken (Ken’s nemesis, in fact), don't appear to be particularly fond of one another. At one point Gosling seems to aggressively ask Liu not to touch him.

It wasn’t long before Liu was setting the record straight on Instagram, writing:

I'd beach off with this Kenadian again in a heartbeat. He is the best human in every way, especially when he jokes around with us on the carpet and on set, infecting all of us with his Kenergy. Now let's get back to the issues that matter, like supporting our striking actors and writers fighting for fair wages!

La La Land is partly a love letter to Hollywood and to jazz music. In the film, John Legend plays Keith, a musician who acknowledges the necessity of changing with the times (in contrast with Gosling’s Sebastian, who wants to take jazz back to its roots).

Legend has spoken about how much he admires Gosling’s work ethic, because the actor honed quite a few new skills, such as tap dancing and piano playing, on the set of La La Land:

The fact that he learned as well as he did for someone who didn't normally... in fact I was a little bit jealous. He works so hard, I haven't seen any of his flaws yet.

In Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Gosling makes Ken into something more than an empty cipher or stereotype. Beneath the washboard abs and blond hair is a man who feels imprisoned by his masculinity and the expectations people have of men. 

What makes Gosling’s performance really land, however, is his comedic timing, which particularly impressed director Gerwig, who said:

You know those actors you can… just sort of feel that they know what's funny, and I always felt that about him. And then I'm a big fan of all of his SNLs; I always thought he was great on SNL… He did ‘Guy That Just Got a Boat’ [playing Guy Who Just Joined Soho House] on ‘Weekend Update,’ and it's so good.

Greta had Gosling in mind for Ken from the beginning; his name even appeared in the script before he was officially cast.

Throughout his career Russell Crowe has been in a number of remarkable roles, and though he is probably best known for playing Maximus in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, he also earned plaudits for The Nice Guys. The film is a bit of a throwback, and its buddy cop formula feels both fresh and familiar, thanks in part to the chemistry between Crowe and Gosling. 

Although Crowe is the type of actor who will stay in character no matter what happens to be going on around him, the same isn’t true of Gosling, who is well known for his improvisational abilities. Fortunately for both, Crowe took his co-star’s antics in stride and even found them charming:

Ryan Gosling can make me laugh in a heartbeat. Whatever character s*** I'm trying to do, he can just... like a laser, pump through it and just [makes tickling gesture], and just sends me off!

Though not particularly beloved by critics, All Good Things is a fascinating film that draws on the true story of convicted murderer Robert Durst. Gosling plays David Marks (the film’s version of Durst), while Kirsten Dunst co-stars as Kate McCarthy (based on Kathleen McCormack, Durst’s wife). 

The role pushed Gosling into some dark territory, as Dunst pointed out:

I think Ryan’s very uncomfortable with the things that he had to do, to me especially, in this film. I think that psychologically it really bothered him at times… But I like seeing Ryan as a crazy person.

Dunst said in another interview, “He was so upset by doing that that he sent flowers the next day. That was hard for him."