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t's a problem most i
actors would kill I
for: howto deal i
with critical ac- I
claim so effusive :
it's almost para- i
Iyzing. But Ryan i
Gosling - nom- i"Who cm say tlat, anyway? I'U have
to tell myself not to listen when that hap-
pens," says the 26-year-old star of the
new courlroom thriller "Fractu.re," open-
ing Friday. "futd those that say that might
be saying I'm the worst pretty soon So
at the moment, I have to try to not listen
f^ thic ch'ff afthar "
He may have to, since his indie cred
and offbeat good looks have placed him
square in the sights of studom Since
Gosling emerged in the early'90s from
"The New Mickey Mouse Club" - unde-
niably one of the most celeb-mak-
ing shows in teleyision history
(around that time, it also fea-
tured Justin Timberlake, Keri
Russell, Christina Aguilera
and Britney Spears) - the
Ontario native has emed
praise for his work in the
independent fllms "The Be-
Iiever" (2001), "The Slaugh-
ter Rule" (2002), "The United
States of Leland" (2003) md lasl
year's gritfy "Half Nelson "
His one genuine commercial hit,
2004's "The Notebook," was directed by
Nick Cassavetes, whose sincere response
to the script - adapted tiom a novel by
Nicholas Sparks - helped Gosling em-
brace the gushy, heart-on-its-sleeve ro-
mance (Ihe movie co-stmed Rachel Mc-
Adams, 29, Gosling's cunent real-life
girlfriend and another white-hot talent )
"I think it takes [$rts] to make a love
story [as old-fashioned as that], because
people are so clnical," Gosling says, re-
calling how Cassavetes "stood at the edge
of his pool and cried He said he believedin love and believed the fllm's kind of
Iove was possible .. A Iot of people read
the script and thought it was cheesy and a
'HollFyood' idea of love I wasn't not one
of those people sometimes But after do-
ing the film, so many people have come
up to me and said it was their pnents'
story or lt was their story"
Gosling's unconventional approach in
even traditional fiIms (his perfomance
as a thrill-seeking high school student
helped kink up the 2002 Sandra Bullock
thriller "Murder by Numbers') has be-
come part of his image And, lik6 ; .
seYeral other young actors before
him - Sem Penn and Daniel
Day-Lewis in the '80s, Leo-
nardo Di Caprio and Edwdrd
Norton in the '90s - cobling
has gamered tremendous
respect afterjust a hand-
ful of roles As withthose ac-
tors, his serious persona has
helped him even when the films
may not exactly be Oscar-wofthy.
rw he's seasonins another seem- Now he's seasoning another seem-
ingly conventional movie, "Fracture,"
with a rumbling undercurrent of moral
ambiguiry In director Gregory Hoblit's
Iegal thriller, attomey WiIIy Beachum
(Gosling) is set to jump from the DA's of,
flce to the lucrative world of private prac-
tice He only has one more case to gel
off hrs desk: an attempted murder craft-
ed by a wealthy, wily engineer (Anthony
Hopkins). But as is ty?ical with Gosling,
Beachum is hardly a white knight
"He's the good guy yet he's not real-
ly that good," says Gosling about his char-
acte! a guy who'd love to simply takeEo
=
o
oEz
I
ro
o
o
o
!inated this past
year for a Best Actor Oscar for
"Half Nelson" and frequently
referred to as one of the best
actors of his generation - has
a simple solution.
POJ
3nczI
2o€the big-money job but knows the englneer
could-get awiywith murder' and doesn't
like to be outsmarted or outplayed'
Did Gosling tean anlthing by watching
Hopkrns?
'iI leamed I'll never be as good as Antho-
nv Hopkins, and that was good to know,"
he savs. "He's so good that it's hard to un-
derst;nd. I thought maybe I could take
Lhis processl aPan, but I couldn'l'' "And t lovecl watching how he han-
dled his life and work and how he allows
his creativity to spill into so many dif-
ferent areas. Notiust something he gets
oaid for He writes, he directs, he paints,
^he's a composen He never stoPs "
Similarlv, Gosling is stretching his tal-
ents. He his played guitar in a rock band
for years. He hopes to write and direct a
film about the child soldiers of Uganda'
And he'll continue to tackle olfbeat proJ-
ects like the upcoming "Lars and the ReaJ
GAl," a film about a man who falls in love
with a life-size doll ("The situation is fun-
-do
f{
J
=E
zEo
@
c
-oe
o
N
oo
=oz
oz
f
thVRsToY
t's a problem most i
actors would kill I
for: howto deal i
with critical ac- I
claim so effusive :
it's almost para- i
Iyzing. But Ryan i
Gosling - nom- i"Who cm say tlat, anyway? I'U have
to tell myself not to listen when that hap-
pens," says the 26-year-old star of the
new courlroom thriller "Fractu.re," open-
ing Friday. "futd those that say that might
be saying I'm the worst pretty soon So
at the moment, I have to try to not listen
f^ thic ch'ff afthar "
He may have to, since his indie cred
and offbeat good looks have placed him
square in the sights of studom Since
Gosling emerged in the early'90s from
"The New Mickey Mouse Club" - unde-
niably one of the most celeb-mak-
ing shows in teleyision history
(around that time, it also fea-
tured Justin Timberlake, Keri
Russell, Christina Aguilera
and Britney Spears) - the
Ontario native has emed
praise for his work in the
independent fllms "The Be-
Iiever" (2001), "The Slaugh-
ter Rule" (2002), "The United
States of Leland" (2003) md lasl
year's gritfy "Half Nelson "
His one genuine commercial hit,
2004's "The Notebook," was directed by
Nick Cassavetes, whose sincere response
to the script - adapted tiom a novel by
Nicholas Sparks - helped Gosling em-
brace the gushy, heart-on-its-sleeve ro-
mance (Ihe movie co-stmed Rachel Mc-
Adams, 29, Gosling's cunent real-life
girlfriend and another white-hot talent )
"I think it takes [$rts] to make a love
story [as old-fashioned as that], because
people are so clnical," Gosling says, re-
calling how Cassavetes "stood at the edge
of his pool and cried He said he believedin love and believed the fllm's kind of
Iove was possible .. A Iot of people read
the script and thought it was cheesy and a
'HollFyood' idea of love I wasn't not one
of those people sometimes But after do-
ing the film, so many people have come
up to me and said it was their pnents'
story or lt was their story"
Gosling's unconventional approach in
even traditional fiIms (his perfomance
as a thrill-seeking high school student
helped kink up the 2002 Sandra Bullock
thriller "Murder by Numbers') has be-
come part of his image And, lik6 ; .
seYeral other young actors before
him - Sem Penn and Daniel
Day-Lewis in the '80s, Leo-
nardo Di Caprio and Edwdrd
Norton in the '90s - cobling
has gamered tremendous
respect afterjust a hand-
ful of roles As withthose ac-
tors, his serious persona has
helped him even when the films
may not exactly be Oscar-wofthy.
rw he's seasonins another seem- Now he's seasoning another seem-
ingly conventional movie, "Fracture,"
with a rumbling undercurrent of moral
ambiguiry In director Gregory Hoblit's
Iegal thriller, attomey WiIIy Beachum
(Gosling) is set to jump from the DA's of,
flce to the lucrative world of private prac-
tice He only has one more case to gel
off hrs desk: an attempted murder craft-
ed by a wealthy, wily engineer (Anthony
Hopkins). But as is ty?ical with Gosling,
Beachum is hardly a white knight
"He's the good guy yet he's not real-
ly that good," says Gosling about his char-
acte! a guy who'd love to simply takeEo
=
o
oEz
I
ro
o
o
o
!inated this past
year for a Best Actor Oscar for
"Half Nelson" and frequently
referred to as one of the best
actors of his generation - has
a simple solution.
POJ
3nczI
2o€the big-money job but knows the englneer
could-get awiywith murder' and doesn't
like to be outsmarted or outplayed'
Did Gosling tean anlthing by watching
Hopkrns?
'iI leamed I'll never be as good as Antho-
nv Hopkins, and that was good to know,"
he savs. "He's so good that it's hard to un-
derst;nd. I thought maybe I could take
Lhis processl aPan, but I couldn'l'' "And t lovecl watching how he han-
dled his life and work and how he allows
his creativity to spill into so many dif-
ferent areas. Notiust something he gets
oaid for He writes, he directs, he paints,
^he's a composen He never stoPs "
Similarlv, Gosling is stretching his tal-
ents. He his played guitar in a rock band
for years. He hopes to write and direct a
film about the child soldiers of Uganda'
And he'll continue to tackle olfbeat proJ-
ects like the upcoming "Lars and the ReaJ
GAl," a film about a man who falls in love
with a life-size doll ("The situation is fun-
-do
f{
J
=E
zEo
@
c
-oe
o
N
oo