Built a career on choosing roles that looked wrong for him, then making everyone forget he was ever the guy from The Notebook.
At a glance
- Known for
- The Notebook · Drive · La La Land · Barbie
- Before fame
- Beat 17,000 kids for a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club at age 13, lived with Justin Timberlake's family
- Off-screen
- Recorded an album with a children's choir in a band called Dead Man's Bones
Part of Child Stars, All Grown Up featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Drew Barrymore.
Timeline
Mickey Mouse Club grad turned indie darling turned unironically beloved Ken.
The Ken Moment
Barbie was the highest-grossing film of 2023, and Ken wasn't even the main character. The supporting role earned his third Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor), and the live performance of "I'm Just Ken" at the 96th Academy Awards, with roughly 75 shirtless Kens and Slash on guitar, was the most genuinely entertaining thing the Oscars had produced in years. He lost Best Original Song to Billie Eilish and used the nomination to publicly call out the Academy for snubbing Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie: "There is no Ken without Barbie." Playing a plastic doll's boyfriend turned out to be the move that made everyone stop taking him too seriously, which somehow made him more interesting.
Big Swings
La La Land tied the all-time Oscar record with 14 nominations, gave him a Golden Globe win, and his second Best Actor nomination. The next two years complicated the story. The Nice Guys (2016) held 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and made $63 million on a $50 million budget. Blade Runner 2049 arrived in 2017 with Denis Villeneuve directing and critical acclaim, opened to $31.5 million domestically, and became a talking point about legacy sequels and audience indifference. First Man (2018) sparked political controversy when he defended the omission of the moon flag-planting scene, saying Armstrong's achievement "transcended countries and borders." Three acclaimed films, three different problems.
The Deliberate Disappearance
He stepped away from acting in 2013, telling the press he'd "lost perspective on what he was doing," and made no film appearances in 2014 before returning with The Big Short in 2015.
The Drive Years
Half Nelson (2006) got him his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor and the Independent Spirit Award for a drug-addicted teacher role that most audiences missed. By 2011 he'd turned that credibility into one of the more impressive single-year runs in recent memory: Crazy, Stupid, Love, Drive, and The Ides of March, three films in three different registers, none of them playing it safe. Drive is the one that stuck, a Nicolas Winding Refn neo-noir that made him a cult figure. He also released a self-titled album with his band Dead Man's Bones in 2009, recorded with a children's choir, which is either the weirdest career move of that decade or the most on-brand thing he ever did.
The Notebook and the Ceiling It Built
The Notebook (2004) made him a romantic lead overnight, but the behind-the-scenes story is more revealing: director Nick Cassavetes has said Gosling asked to have co-star Rachel McAdams replaced mid-production over perceived chemistry issues before tensions resolved. They dated in real life for two years after filming wrapped. The movie gave him mainstream name recognition and a rom-com ceiling he spent the next decade methodically dismantling.
The Sundance Hint
The Believer (2001) won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his performance as a Jewish neo-Nazi, but the film's controversial subject matter blocked wide distribution and likely cost him an Oscar nomination before his career had really started.
The Kid from Cornwall
At 13, he beat out 17,000 kids at a Montreal open audition to join The All-New Mickey Mouse Club alongside Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake. He was the only cast member whose family didn't live in the cast complex, and at 13 he was his family's sole income source. By 17 he'd dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time. That's the whole origin: a working-class LDS kid from small-town Ontario who got into a room with future pop stars and concluded that Hollywood was reachable.
Rise to Fame
A 12-year-old from Cornwall, Ontario beat out 17,000 kids for The Mickey Mouse Club, sharing a cast with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. None of that mattered. The Disney pipeline dried up, and he spent the late '90s on forgettable Canadian TV before dropping out of high school at 17.
What got him taken seriously was playing a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001). He's called it "the film that kind of gift-wrapped the career I have now." The Notebook made him famous in 2004, but Half Nelson proved the range. He got an Oscar nomination at 26 for playing a crack-addicted teacher on a $700,000 budget. The guy from the Nicholas Sparks movie was suddenly an indie darling, and neither audience wanted to share him.
In the Spotlight
Playing Ken in Barbie shouldn't have worked. He turned it down. Greta Gerwig wrote "Ken Ryan Gosling" into the script with no backup, and his daughters' indifference to the character convinced him to take it. The $1.44 billion gross convinced everyone else. He performed "I'm Just Ken" at the Oscars in a pink suit after initially saying "100% no." His Supporting Actor nomination sparked backlash because Margot Robbie got snubbed for Best Actress.
Project Hail Mary opened to $80.5 million, the year's biggest debut, He's 45 and booking franchise leads, which is either a second act or proof the first one never ended.
Side Notes
Before anyone knew his name, he taught himself a fake accent by imitating Marlon Brando because he thought sounding Canadian wasn't tough enough. He still has it. He co-owns Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills that he personally renovated and has run since 2004 with chef Ben Benameur.
His band Dead Man's Bones, formed with Zach Shields after they bonded over the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, recorded one album with a children's choir. Each song got three takes. He's credited as "Baby Goose." The album's track "In the Room Where You Sleep" ended up in The Conjuring, which feels about right for a guy whose parents reportedly moved out of his childhood home because they believed it was haunted.