| Ryan Gosling's Love for a "Real Girl" |
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Page 1 of 2  Ryan Gosling, star of "Lars and the Real Girl"  Poster for "The Mickey Mouse Club", a career jump start for Gosling, Spears and Timberlake   Craig Gillespie, director of "Lars and the Real Girl" Instead of focusing on garnering an audience of peers, Gosling kicked off his film career playing a neo-Nazi in "The Believer." Then he did such roles as a young murderer in "The United States of Leland," an unsuitable lover in "The Notebook," a suicidal patient in "Stay" and now, the lover of an inflatable doll in "Lars and The Real Girl." Though it seems like a huge leap to take on the role of a guy who establishes a real, though seemingly delusional, relationship with an inflatable doll, Gosling has the acting skill to make it work. Certainly he has given life to tough parts before: witness his study in subtlety defining Dan Dunne—the inner-city junior high teacher with a drug habit who forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students—in "Half Nelson." That part got him a dark-horse Oscar nomination for Best Actor last year. So, although it's no longer that surprising that he can lend depth to his characters with skill far beyond his peers; Gosling likes to keep challenging himself... and us. larsandtherealgirl-themovie.comQ: You've had some remarkable success with your choice of films. Is there a conscious process as to how you choose your characters, and in particular, your character in this film? Ryan Gosling: For the most part, when I read scripts I can't relate to any of the characters. So when I can, I jump on it. I think movies make it look easy to be a person, and I don't think that it is [the case]. It's kind of complicated to balance out who we are, who we think we are, who we think people think we are, so I look for characters that feel human, that have jobs, that have to work for a living, and aren't sure what's wrong with them and don't know how to change it. Q: So you're really into this guy Lars? What did you see in him that struck you? RG: First of all, the film hit me as a "Harvey" or a "Harold and Maude" or "Being There." There are these movies that we all love, but there's not that many of them. They're in a genre by themselves. They just occur once in awhile. But I love them, and I thought this was my opportunity to play in one of them. When I read "Lars" I wished Gene Wilder could play the part. If he did, this would be the greatest movie ever. So I thought it was just a great opportunity for me to get to be a part of something that won't come around again. Q: This is more of a comedic turn compared to your other movies. Did it open up your eyes to do more humorous films, as opposed to those that you've done that were dark and desolate? RG: Yeah, well, I think Craig Gillespie is a great director, because we took it seriously. The more serious we took it, the funnier it got. This kind of takes it back to Gene Wilder, when he falls in love with that sheep in "Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex * but Were Afraid to Ask," he really falls in love with that sheep. He's looking at it lustfully and it's just the funniest thing ever. I think that a lot of comedies are trying to be funny. But this movie walks an interesting line. It's funny and sad at the same time. Q: Well, it is a black comedy. Do you have other favorite black comedies beyond the Gene Wilder ones like "Catch 22"—any that inspired you? RG: Yeah, sure... that's a good one. I think for the most part, we were thinking a alot about films from the Hal Ashby ["Harold and Maude"] vein. Q: The tagline to this film—"The search of love begins outside the box"—makes the film sound like a salacious, perverse kind of movie but it wasn't that at all. Was that something you brought to it, or was it on the page? Though it is about relationship with a sex doll, he doesn't have sex with it, and doesn't see her like a sex object at all. RG: I felt struck by how rebellious it was to make a movie [like this] that was nice. To make a movie that believed in the goodness of people. To ask the question to everyone who is afraid of being themselves. Like what would you do if you walked into a place of total acceptance? It's an interesting question. Q: When you first were pitched the film, did you think it was going to be a crass, perverse film? RG: I heard the tagline, about a guy with a sex doll, and I didn't think it would last a whole script. But when I read the whole thing, I found myself crying, I was so connected to it, I couldn't believe this writer took me on this trip, made me care about these people, made me care about this doll who became a woman to me as I read this script. It became romantic to me about this guy who loves, and makes this choice to love and doesn't need to be loved in return, doesn't compromise his hopes to be with someone. He just has all this love to give and he gives it. Q: This movie isn't just about a fantasy love, it's also about a fantasy community. People might look at it strangely as if it doesn't exist. Maybe in Canada this place might exist. RG: I think people don't give people enough credit. I was in your camp in the beginning, and then I saw the effect of Bianca on the crew, the crew who never read the script. The thought of it just as a job. Suddenly she had an interesting impact on everyone. The idea of her. She's a symbol, she forces you to be creative with yourself—through her. A lot of people were interested in taking that ride. Another thing about the community [Lars lives in] is everyone thinks that they go along with it, but that's not true. Through the course of the film, Craig made sure that there were people that were doubting. The film focuses on the people who are willing to take this trip, because they are the interesting ones. There's lots of people in this film who don't want to do it and so they're not interesting, it's a dead end, they're not willing to go on this trip with him. That's what makes this film special. I was waiting for someone to burst Lars' bubble, do something terrible but the film doesn't focus on those people. It acknowledges them [and] moves through it but focuses on those who will. Q: What kind of research did you have to do for this movie? RG: What are you implying? [laughs] But for Lars, it's a real love story, he's not really... it's not a doll to him. And there's a whole community of guys out there who have relationships with these dolls and now, since I've done this film, I am very interested in it. I think it's fascinating. But Lars doesn't consider himself part of that community. He's in a love story. He met a girl on the internet, she came out to live with him, caught a terminal illness and died... That's a movie I'd see anyway. Q: What did you learn about this community of men who become attached to dolls like this? RG: Well, I think it's easy to be judgmental about them. There's an interesting documentary on the BBC about them—there are very complicated relationships. They [the dolls] are a very huge emotional support for them. One guy is a hang-glider, and he takes his doll to watch him hang-glide. He needs that support. It's not that far from a kid who needs his teddy-bear. It's possible. You go through something with that bear, you go through fun times, you cry with that bear, you really experience things with it and bond with it. Should you ever lose it, it would be heartbreaking. You would see a real sense of loss. We're all capable of this. |