Page 85 - SHARP September 2022

“THIS IS THE MOST PHYSICALLY CHALLENGING THING I’VE EVER DONE.”
STRIDING INTO A PHOTO CALL IN THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS
on a recent summer evening, decked out in a crisp Gucci blazer and a vivid Hawaiian shirt, Ryan Gosling practically looks reborn — relaxed, refreshed, and every bit like a guy who’s just come back from a much-needed four-year vacation.
Rested and refocused, he’s finally ready for action. Literally: he trained for seven months to take on the role of a rogue CIA agent in the $200 million Netflix summer blockbuster The Gray Man — the most expensive Netflix movie ever and a success that has already spawned plans for a spate of spinoffs and sequels.
As a matter of fact, this long-awaited return to leading-man status heralds an entirely new act in the ever-evolving career of Ryan Gosling, as the actor — who was born in London, Ontario — embarks on a number of hotly anticipated new projects. From donning tousled blond locks to appear in Greta Gerwig’s buzzed-about Barbie movie — whose behind-the-scenes snaps have already become viral meme fodder — to reteaming with The Place Beyond the Pines director Derek Cianfrance for a sure-to-be-intriguing remake of Universal’s classic ’40s horror picture The Wolf Man, Gosling seems primed for a renaissance.
That’s not to say there was anything wrong with the old Ryan Gosling. During his two previous outings as SHARP cover star — he first graced the magazine on the eve of 2013’s Gangster Squad, then returned three years later to promote the release of Shane Black’s uproarious action-comedy The Nice Guys — he proved to be exactly what you’d hope for in a homegrown Hollywood superstar. Unlike other handsome, effortlessly charming actors of his generation, Gosling has largely avoided the kinds of effects-driven studio tentpoles that tend to relegate even the most gifted thespians to spouting one-liners in front of green screens while wearing spandex and a flowing cape. Instead, he makes more discerning (if unpredictable) choices, preferring to work with auteur directors like Terrence Malick (Song to Song) or Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives), test himself with genre fare that expands his skill set (singing and dancing in La La Land, sci-fi swashbuckling in Blade Runner 2049),
or even direct audacious, boundary-pushing films of his own (2014’s underrated Lost River).
In 2018, Gosling reunited with La La Land director Damien Chazelle on First Man, an ambitious biographical drama about the 1969 moon landing, in which Gosling turned in a stirring, understated performance as a grieving Neil Armstrong. Since then, there has been precious little of the actor to go around — an absence made all the more acute by the fact that, until the sudden hiatus, Gosling had been amazingly prolific, spending the previous decade banging out one high-profile hit after another, from modern romantic drama classic The Notebook to Adam McKay’s goofball Wall Street crash explainer The Big Short (in which Gosling gave us the now-iconic line “They call me Bubble Boy”).
Gosling has been inescapable in the news and across social media of late thanks to a few tantalizing glimpses of Gosling on the set of Barbie in the full Ken ensemble, replete with six-pack abs, bleach-blond hair, and a stonewashed denim vest. Barbie finished production this past July, but we will have to wait until next year to learn exactly how Gosling embodies the world’s most famous boy-toy. In the meantime, we’ve got his small-screen comeback in the form of The Gray Man.
Filmed during the pandemic, The Gray Man is an easygoing, low-stakes espionage thriller that leans heavily on its genre roots, coasting on its leading man’s breezy charisma and the kind of shoot-outs, fist fights, and car chases that make any action flick go down smoothly. In other words, it seems like an ideal vehicle to reintroduce Gosling to the world. Helmed by the brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, the production put Gosling through the ringer, as the complex stuntwork required him to do some seriously breakneck stuff, including a jump across the roofs of derailing tram cars in Prague. “It took a lot of physical training, tactical training, and then doing the stunts themselves, which we had to reshoot multiple times,” Gosling remembers. “This is the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done.”
Gosling grew up idolizing the action stars he ’80s — stars like
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