Ryan Gosling: ​‘When I was a kid we lived with Elvis for a year’

The last time LWLies caught up with Ryan Gosling he was on the brink of megas­tar­dom – a string of head-turn­ing lead per­for­mances under his belt, an Oscar nom in the bank and the (some­what unde­sired) title of meme king incum­bent secured.

In the five years since Dri­ve left audi­ences gid­dy on gaso­line fumes and unan­i­mous in their new­found man­crush, Gosling has starred in five movies and made his direc­to­r­i­al debut on Lost Riv­er, all while keep­ing his place at Hollywood’s top table. And, in the last 12 months, he’s become a hus­band and father. With so many recent changes in his life, we took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit down with Gosling to dis­cuss how he’s approached find­ing the right bal­ance between his per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al duties.

LWLies: At South By South­west back in March we saw you in con­ver­sa­tion with Guiller­mo del Toro. You talked about how, as a kid grow­ing up in Cana­da, Amer­i­ca was like a pin­up girl on your bed­room wall. How has your per­cep­tion of Amer­i­ca changed since then?

Gosling: When I was a kid all I want­ed to do was to move to Hol­ly­wood and be an actor. I was in love with Amer­i­can movies and music. I grew up not too far away from Detroit, which was the biggest Amer­i­can city near me, and it seemed like the place where every­thing cool came from – from Motown to Eminem or the auto indus­try. For me that was where the Amer­i­can Dream came from. So when I got there I was real­ly sur­prised by the way it is now. They’d just declared bank­rupt­cy and they were start­ing to cut off the pow­er to some of the street lights and there were hous­es burn­ing down and build­ings being torn down every day. So this was like 2011, and at that time it felt like that dream was turn­ing into a night­mare. I want­ed to make a movie about that.

Where did the fairy tale noir aes­thet­ic come from?

That came from this idea that these kids had cre­at­ed this idea of what’s hap­pen­ing to them as being like a fairy tale. So that it would make it impor­tant some­how, that there was some kind of mag­i­cal real­ism, like a spell or some­thing, that made it more impor­tant in their minds. But it was just a sto­ry they told them­selves to make it more roman­tic. I want­ed to shoot the film sub­jec­tive­ly through their lens so that we would see it too.

What is it about fairy tales that attracts you?

I guess they’re the first sto­ries you hear, so they frame your idea of what a good sto­ry is. It’s my first film so it felt like going back to those ear­ly ideas, those first sto­ries that inspired me and made me love movies.

You’ve talked before about find­ing the right col­lab­o­ra­tors, how impor­tant is that to you now?

It’s become real­ly impor­tant. When I was a kid my uncle came to live with us for a year and in that year he decid­ed he was going to be an Elvis imper­son­ator. And so we lived with Elvis for that year. He was mak­ing his own jump­suits and talk­ing like Elvis and singing like him and every­one got involved in his act – my mom was a back­up dancer and my dad was his secu­ri­ty. It just brought every­one togeth­er in this real­ly great way and gave us some­thing to work on and care about. It was fun, and when it was over it was kind of like the cir­cus had left town and every­body kind of went back to their own lives. It real­ly affect­ed me, I want­ed that to hap­pen again. It made such an impres­sion and I often find myself try­ing to revis­it that some­how. To make some­thing with your friends is a great expe­ri­ence, when you have some­thing to show from the time you spent togeth­er – you’re not just sat around sip­ping lattes talk­ing about the weath­er. You real­ly get to know peo­ple that way, when you work with them.

We recent­ly watched Liv Cofrixen’s film, My Life Direct­ed by Nico­las Wind­ing Refn. In it you spend a lot of time hang­ing out with Liv and Nic and their kids…

Nic is that way, he brings his fam­i­ly every­where. I think that’s real­ly cool. And also [Blue Valen­tine, The Place Beyond the Pines direc­tor] Derek Cian­france is the same, his wife and his kids are always a big part of the pro­duc­tion. I think they’re both good exam­ples in that way that you can be cre­ative and still be involved with your family.

It can’t be easy bal­anc­ing work and fam­i­ly in your profession.

It’s true. But if you cre­ate your own work… If you look at [John] Cas­savetes for exam­ple, he made his films in his house with his wife and his fam­i­ly and friends. The kids’ rooms were the edit­ing rooms or what­ev­er. [Fran­cis Ford] Cop­po­la was famous for that too, hav­ing his fam­i­ly around. That’s what I want, ulti­mate­ly. This movie fea­tured a lot of peo­ple who I’d worked with before and a lot I hadn’t, you know, like Reda [Kateb] and Matt Smith and Benoît [Debie].

Do you see your­self mak­ing more per­son­al films?

I don’t know, this has been like a three-year process and I’m just approach­ing the tail end of it… I’ve learned a lot from mak­ing this film, both about myself and about film­mak­ing. I real­ly excit­ed to make anoth­er film, I’m just not sure what that will be just yet.

Is there any­thing about Lost Riv­er you’d change?

Well, the thing is you don’t know how to make a movie until you make one. There’s no way to learn it but to do it, that’s the way it is. But I love the way it turned out and I think it reflects what we all set out to make. I’m anx­ious to get back in there and make anoth­er one.