Time Out London Interview with Ryan Gosling

There's only one thing more revolting than a salty young Hollywood buck - and that's a salty young Hollywood buck already burnt by the process. All that defiant ambition bubbling over, only to be curdled by self-loathing.

So it is with a heavy heart that you hear 20-year-old former childstar Ryan Gosling's opening salvo about rebelling against all that his father had wanted for him. As a former Mickey Mouse Club performer alongside Britney and Christina, and a player in 'Young Hercules', such cynicism comes as a bit of a
surprise, especially in these soundbitehappy times. Not for him cautious, anodyne platitudes about his fellow thesps, or open-eyed wonder at his sheer good fortune.

'I've always hated the complacency which comes from good looks, ' he says. 'I like to kill things that are beautiful about yourself. I don't want to be beautiful or pure because it is a weakness. So you try to kill it.

You try to ruin it and make it ugly and see if they still love you.' Which is easy enough to say when you look as Arquette-ish as he does. Sat on a sofa in the Covent Garden Hotel, smoking Marlboro Lights, he's a study in measured insouciance, resembling nothing so much as a missing member of Leo's Pussy
Posse.

Trying to pigeon-hole him as part of some new Hollywood elite is, however, a non-starter. Clea Duvall, whom he works alongside in the upcoming 'Slaughter House', gains credit for her integrity, and he praises Thora Birch for her choices, but others, like Josh Hartnett, get short shrift. 'They don't have
to try as hard as some people. Too many people tell them they're good. And I've lost respect for Leonardo as well. At the beginning, I was impressed, but then he did "Titanic". . .

I've been there when he comes into a room, and it's like Peter Pan.' This is why Gosling has made 'The Believer', the 'difficult' little film about a Jewish Nazihe has just starred in for Henry Bean, and which is released here in early December. 'I like to make myself squirm. That's when I'm good, and this was
the first project of its kind for both me and the director. You can see on the screen we were both squirming throughout.'

Raised a Mormon in a family of ten brothers in Cornwall, Ontario, Gosling saw parallels between his take on his religion and that of Danny, the character he plays. 'I had a reverence for faith like him, but it's different. I was scared of the faith. Danny thinks: I don't want to be weak - I want to be a person who would've done something in the Holocaust. In a strange way, he fetishises the Nazis because they represented everything that is strong. He's somebody who loves too much and can't exist in a world like this. Danny can't lie, and he's got tired of living a lie, and so he loves violently.'

A prodigious young talent spirited on to the screen aged 14, Gosling was the first family member to forgo the opportunity to work in the local paper mill. 'Irespected them for working in a paper mill - my uncle only had three days sick in his whole life and made life good for his family. And from an early age
I sawthe negative effect the entertainment industry can have on people. My father could be a real tyrant about it and that's one of the reasons I hated it.'

Perhaps Gosling Snr saw talent in his son and wanted them to have a better life. Gosling Jnr is sceptical. 'He could put his family in debt buying this stupid sound equipment I didn't ask for. So when I finally got out of the grips of my father, I said, "I'm not going to do anything you can brag about any more."

Gosling tells how his father would wake him up at 2am and ask him to perform for his workmates. 'On my birthday once I was told to go to some karaoke bar with my father and sing. I didn't want to, so he turns to his friends and says "He'll sing now" as he slips me $50 under the table. It was like he was my pimp.'

Of course, we sympathise when we hear about young talents living with overbearing fathers, but it's equally tempting to snigger at the cliche. (We still laugh at Macaulay Culkin, even now that he's put his life together again and trotted off to impress Vaudeville Theatre audiences in 'Madame Melville'. ) Not that Gosling falls into the Culkin category. 'Look, ' he insists, 'I've had a lot of therapy around me, and I've had enough of it myself, and of people who hide behind their therapy because they think that is what makes them special. That is as annoying as the people who try to live through others.

'This is the first time I've thought about it, but 'The Believer' must've beena conscious choice to want to do something I was proud of and do the kind of movies I wasn't allowed to watch as a child.'

Of course, there are no guarantees that Gosling is going to the top.

Given his penchant for busting protocol, he may well end up shooting both feet clear off. But there is something spectacular about his performance in 'The Believer' that makes you confident about his prospects. After all, a little bruising doesn't even leave a scar.

- Christopher Hemblade