Fact: Ryan Gosling is an actor. Fact: Ryan Gosling is famous. Fact: Ryan Gosling is successful. Question: Does Ryan Gosling deserve this success? Is he as talented as his astronomical stardom suggests?<\/p>\n
This is actually a pretty hot topic in online <\/span>forums<\/span><\/a>. These conversations can go like this: Person A says, \u201cHe sucks.\u201d Person B cites the movies \u201cBlue Valentine\u201d and \u201cDrive\u201d as counterpoints to Person A\u2019s claim. Person C comes to the defense of Person A and says, \u201cAgreed. He\u2019s a pretty sh**** actor.\u201d Person D intervenes and offers the opinion, \u201che\u2019s over8ed. He only gets jobs cuz of his looks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Some of these seminars also take place on online bodybuilding\u00a0<\/span>forums<\/span><\/a>, which serve surprisingly well for milked-up muscle bloggers who have a variety of opinions on Ryan Gosling\u2019s talents. Most criticised him as an overrated \u201caesthetic\u201d actor and as \u201cthe romantic guy.\u201d They also had things to say about his body and physique which one contributor described as \u201cmediocre at best.\u201d Then they started talking about Channing Tatum for some reason.<\/span><\/p>\n His critics primarily go off of one movie alone, \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d which made many, like, dudes (bros) view him as simply the romantic, tender, manly man who was always falling in and out of love. That\u2019s fair. He was and is way better than every other man at being romantic and portraying romance. In \u201cThe Notebook\u201d he plays a bearded, can\u2019t-harm-a-fly lover of another. The character is somewhat clich\u00e9d, thin, and flat. It presented him with the challenge of seeming really in love with someone else\u2014and that\u2019s the premise of \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d His character in reality had little depth, but Ryan Gosling did his best to inject at least a little bit of intrigue to a painfully plain character. Unfortunately, those in the stubborn blogosphere look over his other roles that show his talents and they refuse to swallow their pride and explore his obscenely diverse filmography.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a smorgasbord of traits that can make someone a \u201cgood\u201d actor, but the one to focus on for Ryan Gosling is versatility. Versatility for an actor means they can play roles that are different from one another<\/span>\u2014<\/span>such as being able to play a matador or a lawyer or a middle school swim instructor or a cactus<\/span>\u2014<\/span>and be able to pull it off believably. Many actors can do this with varying degrees of success; Ryan Gosling undoubtedly possesses more versatility than what those puffy Cheeto-fingered bloggers seem to think.<\/span><\/p>\n He is not overrated. In fact, apart from being a great romantic lead capable of wearing a white t-shirt better than anyone else in \u201cthe biz\u201d and on the planet, he has given every indication through the diverse roles he plays that he is much more than his role of Noah in \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Among his thick repertoire of roles, four stand out that show his versatility: the arrogant, money-hungry wall street banker of \u201cThe Big Short\u201d; the soft and deluded troubled man of \u201cLars and the Real Girl\u201d; the bad boy of \u201cDrive\u201d; and the singer, dancer, piano player and jazz enthusiast of \u201cLa La Land.\u201d These parts he\u2019s taken on do a number of things. One, they challenge the shade he\u2019s gotten from \u201cThe Notebook,\u201d and two, they show the breadth of his capabilities as not only an actor but as an entertainer. His<\/span> talents<\/span><\/i> go far beyond the romantic lover-boy with \u201ca mediocre\u201d bod, and each one of these films proves a different facet to his undeniable talent.<\/span><\/p>\n If the 2004 movie \u201cThe Notebook\u201d painted Ryan Gosling as this charming and tender lover who could snap like a twig, the 2015 movie \u201cThe Big Short\u201d served as his chance to playfully dismantle this image in one fell swoop. <\/span><\/p>\n In \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d he isn\u2019t charming Ryan Gosling at all. In fact, he\u2019s self-serving, big-money banker Jared Vennett. The below clip shows his despicable nature with one of the strongest<\/span>\u2014<\/span>in terms of comedy<\/span>\u2014<\/span>moments when he expresses overt racism when describing his \u201cquant.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Throughout the movie, Ryan Gosling shows this level of serpentine slickness that is so uncharacteristic of his other roles, but works perfectly, simply because he\u2019s normally regarded as such a sweet guy. Importantly, it\u2019s believable<\/span>\u2014<\/span>he totally inhabits this role as a money-minded suit. He looks and comes off like kind of a sleaze but makes it seem effortless. His character lacks any sort of moral compass or ethical restraint<\/span>\u2014<\/span>he doesn\u2019t bat an eye at making so much money off of other people\u2019s misfortunes. From Ryan Gosling, it\u2019s a refreshing representation of a highly scrutinized and hated class of society. This role shows that he isn\u2019t afraid to step out of the typical lover-boy pocket of roles that\u2019s given him so much success; in fact, he fully embraces the switch-up. He\u2019s venomous and reprehensible and over-the-top-unsympathetic<\/span>\u2014<\/span>in a good way. To be clear, it\u2019s addicting to watch our friend Ryan Gosling behave like a jerk. Maybe there\u2019s some sort of thrill to watching jerks be jerks, but most assuredly, Ryan Gosling can play the jerk. If someone didn\u2019t know who Ryan Gosling was prior to watching this role (God forbid), it\u2019s quite possible they\u2019d hate him. <\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s think about this role from another perspective. The fact that Ryan Gosling was already pretty widely loved as a \u201csweet guy\u201d before this role shouldn\u2019t overshadow or undermine his acting performance in \u201cThe Big Short\u201d as his \u201cThe Notebook\u201d opposite at all<\/span>\u2014<\/span>because playing the converse of what you\u2019re known for <\/span>can <\/span><\/i>do that. That is to say, playing a one-off \u201cdouche\u201d part when you\u2019re usually a \u201cgood guy\u201d can give you an easy pass acting-wise. While this definitely enhances the joy we get in seeing him spout out racial slurs concerning his \u201cquant,\u201d the fact of the matter is, he embraces the part and makes it his own and he\u2019s great to watch on screen being a total jerk<\/span>\u2014<\/span>and good gracious, he\u2019s good at it.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the understated indie role he takes up in \u201cLars and the Real Girl.\u201d Ryan Gosling plays Lars, a mustachioed, soft-spoken gentleman with a nice sweater who falls in love with a sex toy named Bianca that he bought online. The trouble is, he believes Bianca to be sentient. He uses an interesting combination of sweetness and social ineptitude, that paints him as a tragic character more than anything. <\/span><\/p>\n In this scene for example, he sits very rigidly and acts politely, showing unexpected class and chivalry in front of a sex toy. It\u2019s clear that Ryan Gosling\u2019s playing field is romance, but in \u201cLars,\u201d he embodies an entirely different persona. Lars, at his core, is nervous, depressed, and deluded, and Ryan Gosling fills it tastefully. He colors the love he feels for a sex doll so beautifully that it portrays a very delicate situation with grace. It\u2019s a character that\u2019s tricky to pull off without it feeling gimmicky to the viewer, yet Ryan Gosling does it with so much conviction and earnestness that we begin to honestly believe that we will never be able to treat our loved ones (probably the same ones sitting next to us while watching this movie) with as much care and devotion as Ryan Gosling treats a sex doll that came out of a wooden box.<\/p>\n (For you to understand better, know that the rest of the town becomes supportive of his delusion.) <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a performance that is totally off key from his more typical romantic performances in moves such as \u201cCrazy Stupid Love\u201d or \u201cThe Notebook.\u201d \u201cLars and the Real Girl\u201d doesn\u2019t show that he can be romantic. Instead, it reveals his ability to add believable and emotional depth into a character that is as complicated to portray as Lars.<\/span><\/p>\n Then there\u2019s his performance in \u201cDrive.\u201d All you need to do is watch the intro sequence to see what he\u2019s all about.<\/span><\/p>\n He broods. He broods hard. He smolders too. Always smoldering. He broods and smolders with poise. \u201cDrive\u201d feels like a noir with a neon lights backdrop. How does our Ryan Gosling fit in? Perfectly. He plays a lowly car mechanic <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> a chauffeur for people committing a heist or crime of some sort. (Which do you think is more compelling?) He of course does all of this while wearing a really cool jacket with a scorpion embroidered on the back. For \u201cDrive,\u201d he\u2019s mastered this facial expression of calmness in difficult situations. Simply put, Ryan Gosling abandons the abused <\/span>puppy dog look<\/span><\/a> in favor of a more Neo from \u201cThe Matrix\u201d kind of composure<\/span>\u2014<\/span>except he replaces the cluelessness of Neo with actual intelligence. Yet behind the graceful beauty in this character there\u2019s the brutal and bubbling madness.<\/span><\/p>\n NSFW (because of the violence, not the kiss):<\/span><\/p>\n At his core, the character is violent to the point of gratuitousness. Sure, the guy was trying to kill him, but he stomps this gentleman\u2019s head in pretty aggressively. It\u2019s heinous, yet somehow Ryan Gosling pulls it off with grace. He\u2019s able to take his bread-and-butter tender love and spice it up with some julienned vegetables<\/span>\u2014<\/span>deep down brutality<\/span>\u2014<\/span>and fit it all into this three minute scene.<\/span><\/p>\n Note: He gives her the \u201cI\u2019m sorry, baby, this is what I am!\u201d look at the end of the clip. <\/span><\/p>\n It isn\u2019t the normal lover we see in Ryan Gosling\u2019s more romantic roles, because here he\u2019s adept at murder with the heel of his boot. There\u2019s some warmth behind the vulgarity because it\u2019s fueled with the piping-hot fire of love, but it\u2019s still a pretty neat portrayal of a romantic, albeit a flawed one<\/span>\u2014<\/span>because, you know, he <\/span>kills<\/span><\/i> people. His character progression towards rage and darkness throughout \u201cDrive\u201d dismantles the poise he showed at the start of the movie. Viewers begin to wonder what exactly he\u2019s capable of. Is he as composed as his introduction to the movie seemed to portray? Absolutely not. Yes, it\u2019s the magic of filmmaking but it\u2019s also the magic of Ryan Gosling\u2019s acting.<\/span><\/p>\n Most recently, Ryan Gosling portrayed the jazz enthusiast Sebastian in 2016\u2019s musical \u201cLa La Land.\u201d Sebastian believes himself to be one of the remaining saviors of traditional jazz. He\u2019s arrogant, but unfortunately, he must stay afloat financially by accepting a job with Keith\u2019s (John Legend) commercially-sized jazz band.<\/span><\/p>\n His performance in \u201cLa La Land\u201d is twofold. For one, it verifies his acting chops, but it shows his talents go beyond that by displaying his acute musical sense. For those who haven\u2019t tracked his career since he was a wee boy, in his youth he took the <\/span>stage<\/span><\/a> with Justin Timberlake for the Mickey Mouse <\/span>Club<\/span><\/a>. While he may not have the same absurd range his young vocal chords allowed, it\u2019s clear he hasn\u2019t lost his knack for entertaining through singing and dancing. Moreover, he practiced for four to five hours a day for three to four months to get dope at the piano. That\u2019s more or less what makes his role in \u201cLa La Land\u201d stand out amongst his other roles. Yes, he plays a romantic lead and this movie <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> a love story, but in a way, \u201cLa La Land\u201d brings together everything we know about his versatility as an actor with the addition of his widely unknown musical abilities and ties it all together for a lovely performance. <\/span><\/p>\n We see flecks of his his past roles in there too: arrogance from \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d tenderness and distress from \u201cLars and the Real Girl\u201d<\/span>\u2014<\/span>he unfortunately doesn\u2019t kill anyone so it\u2019s hard to take something from his Drive performance to bring into \u201cLa La Land.\u201d These traits comprise Sebastian\u2019s character. He\u2019s arrogant and prideful but also tender and passionate. Yes, he sounds great when he sings and looks great when he dances, and yes, he shreds impressively on the piano, but it\u2019s the coolest when Ryan interlaces Sebastian\u2019s character traits with these musical abilities.<\/span><\/p>\n Take. for example, the musical number \u201cA Lovely Night,\u201d during which Ryan Gosling is walking with Emma Stone\u2019s character Mia to find their cars after a party. It\u2019s a song about how they admit to there being <\/span>no<\/span><\/i> spark between them and they\u2019re stuck together, wasting what could otherwise be a lovely and perfect night. Ryan struts confidently, hands in pockets and dances pridefully<\/span>\u2014<\/span>as though a relationship with Mia is beneath him, yet he dances fluidly like a pretty swan. He sounds and looks confident. Then, for example, we have the final musical number \u201cEpilogue,\u201d which takes place a few years after they part ways, during which Mia enters Sebastian\u2019s jazz club and Ryan gets on the piano to play the song that links them together. There are no words shared or lyrics crooned, but we see Ryan Gosling playing the keys dripping with the love he still feels for Mia and the tender affection behind Sebastian\u2019s character.<\/span><\/p>\n By these job requirements alone, it should silence Ryan Gosling critics who label him as \u201ctalentless.\u201d He weaves together his acting and musical talents for an effective performance.<\/span><\/p>\n Bodybuilders are trying to hammer a square peg into a circle hole when it comes to talking about acting talent. The rest of us of flabbier arms and pudgier bellies however, love you, Ryan Gosling.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fact: Ryan Gosling is an actor. Fact: Ryan Gosling is famous. Fact: Ryan Gosling is successful. Question: Does Ryan Gosling deserve this success? Is he as talented as his astronomical stardom suggests? This is actually a pretty hot topic in online forums. These conversations can go like this: Person A says, \u201cHe sucks.\u201d Person B […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":2048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[110],"class_list":{"0":"post-2039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-film","8":"tag-defensive-driving","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![puppy dog look<\/span><\/a> in favor of a more Neo from \u201cThe Matrix\u201d kind of composure<\/span>\u2014<\/span>except he replaces the cluelessness of Neo with actual intelligence. Yet behind the graceful beauty in this character there\u2019s the brutal and bubbling madness.<\/span><\/p>\nNSFW (because of the violence, not the kiss):<\/span><\/p>\nAt his core, the character is violent to the point of gratuitousness. Sure, the guy was trying to kill him, but he stomps this gentleman\u2019s head in pretty aggressively. It\u2019s heinous, yet somehow Ryan Gosling pulls it off with grace. He\u2019s able to take his bread-and-butter tender love and spice it up with some julienned vegetables<\/span>\u2014<\/span>deep down brutality<\/span>\u2014<\/span>and fit it all into this three minute scene.<\/span><\/p>\nNote: He gives her the \u201cI\u2019m sorry, baby, this is what I am!\u201d look at the end of the clip. <\/span><\/p>\nIt isn\u2019t the normal lover we see in Ryan Gosling\u2019s more romantic roles, because here he\u2019s adept at murder with the heel of his boot. There\u2019s some warmth behind the vulgarity because it\u2019s fueled with the piping-hot fire of love, but it\u2019s still a pretty neat portrayal of a romantic, albeit a flawed one<\/span>\u2014<\/span>because, you know, he <\/span>kills<\/span><\/i> people. His character progression towards rage and darkness throughout \u201cDrive\u201d dismantles the poise he showed at the start of the movie. Viewers begin to wonder what exactly he\u2019s capable of. Is he as composed as his introduction to the movie seemed to portray? Absolutely not. Yes, it\u2019s the magic of filmmaking but it\u2019s also the magic of Ryan Gosling\u2019s acting.<\/span><\/p>\nMost recently, Ryan Gosling portrayed the jazz enthusiast Sebastian in 2016\u2019s musical \u201cLa La Land.\u201d Sebastian believes himself to be one of the remaining saviors of traditional jazz. He\u2019s arrogant, but unfortunately, he must stay afloat financially by accepting a job with Keith\u2019s (John Legend) commercially-sized jazz band.<\/span><\/p>\nHis performance in \u201cLa La Land\u201d is twofold. For one, it verifies his acting chops, but it shows his talents go beyond that by displaying his acute musical sense. For those who haven\u2019t tracked his career since he was a wee boy, in his youth he took the <\/span>stage<\/span><\/a> with Justin Timberlake for the Mickey Mouse <\/span>Club<\/span><\/a>. While he may not have the same absurd range his young vocal chords allowed, it\u2019s clear he hasn\u2019t lost his knack for entertaining through singing and dancing. Moreover, he practiced for four to five hours a day for three to four months to get dope at the piano. That\u2019s more or less what makes his role in \u201cLa La Land\u201d stand out amongst his other roles. Yes, he plays a romantic lead and this movie <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> a love story, but in a way, \u201cLa La Land\u201d brings together everything we know about his versatility as an actor with the addition of his widely unknown musical abilities and ties it all together for a lovely performance. <\/span><\/p>\nWe see flecks of his his past roles in there too: arrogance from \u201cThe Big Short,\u201d tenderness and distress from \u201cLars and the Real Girl\u201d<\/span>\u2014<\/span>he unfortunately doesn\u2019t kill anyone so it\u2019s hard to take something from his Drive performance to bring into \u201cLa La Land.\u201d These traits comprise Sebastian\u2019s character. He\u2019s arrogant and prideful but also tender and passionate. Yes, he sounds great when he sings and looks great when he dances, and yes, he shreds impressively on the piano, but it\u2019s the coolest when Ryan interlaces Sebastian\u2019s character traits with these musical abilities.<\/span><\/p>\nTake. for example, the musical number \u201cA Lovely Night,\u201d during which Ryan Gosling is walking with Emma Stone\u2019s character Mia to find their cars after a party. It\u2019s a song about how they admit to there being <\/span>no<\/span><\/i> spark between them and they\u2019re stuck together, wasting what could otherwise be a lovely and perfect night. Ryan struts confidently, hands in pockets and dances pridefully<\/span>\u2014<\/span>as though a relationship with Mia is beneath him, yet he dances fluidly like a pretty swan. He sounds and looks confident. Then, for example, we have the final musical number \u201cEpilogue,\u201d which takes place a few years after they part ways, during which Mia enters Sebastian\u2019s jazz club and Ryan gets on the piano to play the song that links them together. There are no words shared or lyrics crooned, but we see Ryan Gosling playing the keys dripping with the love he still feels for Mia and the tender affection behind Sebastian\u2019s character.<\/span><\/p>\nBy these job requirements alone, it should silence Ryan Gosling critics who label him as \u201ctalentless.\u201d He weaves together his acting and musical talents for an effective performance.<\/span><\/p>\nBodybuilders are trying to hammer a square peg into a circle hole when it comes to talking about acting talent. The rest of us of flabbier arms and pudgier bellies however, love you, Ryan Gosling.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fact: Ryan Gosling is an actor. Fact: Ryan Gosling is famous. Fact: Ryan Gosling is successful. Question: Does Ryan Gosling deserve this success? Is he as talented as his astronomical stardom suggests? This is actually a pretty hot topic in online forums. These conversations can go like this: Person A says, \u201cHe sucks.\u201d Person B […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":2048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[110],"class_list":{"0":"post-2039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-film","8":"tag-defensive-driving","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.bowdoin.edu\/bowdoin-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/shoutfactory-productionsite.s3.amazonaws.com\/system\/editorial\/image\/264\/detail_gosling.jpg\"){kind=link}