Movies

Good for Gosling
Actor Ryan Gosling proves not all ex-Mouseketeers go pop.
By Frappa Stout

It takes Ryan Gosling only five minutes to belie all of the preconceived notions I have of him. For an actor who played both a neo-Nazi and a vicious killer before he turned 21, and who exudes a James Dean-style detachment in photos, he's shy. He stutters slightly. He apologizes for being three minutes late. He warns me he's terrible at interviews.

In other words, he's sweet. And self-conscious. I knew Gosling, 23, had long ago shunned the pop stardom of his "Mickey Mouse Club" castmates Justin, Christina and Britney. But as he jumps more rungs on the Hollywood ladder and his roles get even grittier, you wouldn't expect him to use the words "beautiful," "gentle" and "special" to describe another guy.

Even stranger, the guy in question here is his character in the just-out movie "The United States of Leland" -- a suburban teen who murders his former girlfriend's autistic kid brother. Leland's brutal crime is unfathomable, but Gosling makes us feel for him without making excuses for his awful act.

To get inside Leland's head, Gosling visited an L.A. juvenile detention center and met a teenager who had murdered his mother and his friend. The experience changed Gosling. "Anyone would see these kids in orange and just consider them monsters," he says. "They made a bad decision. But they were in their own respects very special people."

Gosling's résumé is replete with angst-heavy roles, many of which have served as lightning rods for controversy: the Jewish student turned neo-Nazi in the edgy 2002 film "The Believer," for one, and a teenage killer hunted by Sandra Bullock (his real-life ex-girlfriend) in the same year's "Murder by Numbers." His are not your typical coming-of-age flicks.

Leland producer and co-star Kevin Spacey believes few of Gosling's peers can claim his power to elicit tears for a killer; plus, "he had a great sense of himself," Spacey says, explaining his decision to choose Gosling over higher-profile actors. Unlike most of them, he says, Gosling is "the real deal."

Growing up in Cornwall, Ontario, Gosling didn't have the easiest time in school. He didn't connect with many teachers, some of whom he says incorrectly attributed his natural squint to smoking marijuana. "They were always smelling me," he recalls with a laugh. "My grades were proof enough to them they were right."

These days, he still has a knack for making people, well, uncomfortable. ("Not a good uncomfortable where you challenge their reality or anything. Just kind of in an irritating way.") His constant companion now is George, a 100-pound "Marmaduke" mutt he rescued from the pound a year ago. Happiness means Johnny Cash blaring, the window open, a Camel cigarette between his lips.

A self-described "scrawny" kid who began singing at age 6, Gosling landed on the "Mickey Mouse Club" at 11. Of his now-famous female co-stars, he recalls that neither, even in pigtails, paid any attention to him. He couldn't sing or dance particularly well, and he jokingly admits he got into "things I shouldn't have." He left after two years.

Today, he's philosophical about even that role: "I've learned that one act doesn't define you."