Mickey Mouse Club, Drive, First Man, Ken… Ryan Gosling talks about his career

Honored at the festival, the actor had fun with his roles as “driver for robbers” or “70-year-old doll without genitals” in a speech full of humor. Which also says a lot about his way of thinking about his career in Hollywood.

Ryan Gosling had a busy weekend! On Sunday, the 43-year-old Canadian actor received a Critics Choice Award for his signature song from barbie, “I’m Just Ken”, giving rise to one of the memes he has the secret to! Here is the excerpt of the moment when he hears his name, and understands that he has won against another piece of the film, “What was I Made For?”performed by Billie Eilish.

15 (real) Ryan Gosling facts

A few hours earlier, it was at the Santa Barbara festival that he was honored, receiving from the hands of Greta Gerwig, in fact, but also from his playing partner Crazy Stupid LoveSteve Carell, the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film.

On stage, Ryan Gosling delivered a fun speech, full of references to the key roles of his career and his love of cinema, which began when he was a child. He also expressed his amazement at looking back, touched to see how lucky he had been to be offered so many interesting projects.

“Until now, I had only thought about everything that cinema had given me, not about what I had been able to do for cinema”he said in the preamble, before recounting how his desire to become an actor came to him very young.

For example, he reveals that he had problems at school because of his overly familiar language: “I didn’t think it was a problem, but my teachers did. I told myself it was just a bunch of weirdos… uh… wait!”, he blurted out in front of a laughing audience, before stopping on one of them. A teacher who managed to give him a taste for reading by realizing that what he really liked was films. “We made a deal: during each weekly visit to the media library, if I finished the borrowed book, I had the right to also choose a film. She got me!” he comments.

“Cinema has expanded my horizons, taught me to dream or rather to dream bigger, he then explains. This whole experience, the work of the directors in collaboration with the actors to create stories, the fact that my mother agreed to take me out of school to tell my own stories… Even very young, the Films opened a door where dreaming didn’t mean wasting time. No, dreaming was doing your job. A job that I always wanted to do, that I wanted to start right away. Whether it’s singing and dancing at the mall in oversized pants or performing “When a Man Loves a Woman” at a wedding, whatever.”

When Ryan Gosling starred in Goosebumps as a teenager

After discussing his first experiences, including that of the Mickey Mouse Club, which also introduced Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake, he moves on to his feature films, filled with memorable roles.

“I was so lucky. I was able to go to the Moon (In First Manin 2018)become a bank robber on a motorcycle (The Place Beyond the Pines2012)a driver for other robbers (Drive2010)I also danced in the stars (La La Land2016)been a primary school teacher – well, a man addicted to crack, but still!- (Half Nelson2006)I even became a Replicant from the future (Blade Runner2017)a gangster from the past (Gangster Squad)a stuntman who suffers from the distance of a loved one (here he talks about his next action comedy with Emily Blunt, The Fall Guy)and therefore more recently, a 70 year old doll without genitals (yes, he does talk about Ken, in barbie).”

Without forgetting to greet the “woman of (his) dreams”and not just at the cinema: Eva Mendes. “The most important thing in all of this is meeting her, and the birth of our two dream children, he said, whilehe very rarely talks about his private life. Deep down, I dreamed of making films one day, and now films have turned my life into a dream.”

Before making the spectators present laugh with this funny introspection, while ultimately showing himself to be touching, Ryan Gosling was invited on stage by director Greta Gerwig, who praised his desire to play this role 100% as soon as he discovered his description of Ken. As well as by Steve Carell, who caused a sensation with his own speech.

The star of The Office detailed that his accomplice Crazy Stupid Love and of The Big Short had answered him one day, to the question “What are you doing this weekend ?”that he planned to go play music at a retirement home with his band, Dead Man’s Bones.

“It’s adorable, isn’t it? continues Carell. Any movie star would have said this on a talk show, used it to get hype, maybe even made money from it or turned it into a voral phenomenon via GIFs or a meme saying #RyanGoslingalahomeretirement. But not Ryan Gosling. He simply did it to make grandpas and grandpas happy. I find it extremely annoying.”

La La Land, Blue Valentine, Barbie: A little musical break with Ryan Gosling