Ryan Gosling Says The Notebook Cast Him For An Unflattering Reason 2023

It appears that one of the impending Barbie film’s actors has skin as thick as plastic.

Ryan Gosling told GQ that he landed his breakthrough role in The Notebook (2004) for a comically unflattering reason.

The Oscar nominee claimed that the film’s director, Nick Cassavetes, told him, “The fact that you don’t have natural leading man qualities is precisely why I want you to be my leading man.”

This was not the first time Ryan has claimed he was cast in a movie because he didn’t appear the part. In the past, he was rumored to have declined the People’s Sexiest Man Alive title.

In 2001’s The Believer, he played a Jewish man who becomes a Neo-Nazi for similar reasons, as he previously disclosed.

The Barbie actor said he had been considered “too old” to portray Ken before.

“The fact that I wasn’t really right for it was exactly why [director Henry Bean] thought I was right for it,” the La La Land star remarked.

This may also explain why Ryan doesn’t appear to be troubled by reports that some fans disapprove of his casting in the upcoming Barbie film because he appears “too old” to portray Ken.

“If people don’t want to play with my Ken, there are many other Kens to play with,” he said, alluding to the fact that Mattel — the company behind the Barbie brand — has long sold various types of Kens, and that in the film, actors John Cena, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and Kingsley Ben-Adir appear as various versions of the eponymous doll.

Ryan also noted that Barbie is the brand’s focal point and that most consumers “never cared” about Ken before now.

Regarding the criticism he received for his portrayal of Ken, Ryan stated, “It’s amusing.” “This kind of pearl-clutching notion of, like, #notmyken. Did you ever consider Ken prior to this?”