He's not Just Ken: The 9 best Ryan Gosling performances
The people's princess
Project Hail Mary hits cinemas on March 20, and while it’s true that it’s the latest directorial project from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie), based on a novel by Andy Weir (The Martian), it’s really all about that lead casting.
Short of Matthew McConaughey or Bruce Willis, we can’t think of any Hollywood actor we’d trust more to go out into space on behalf of humanity than Ryan Gosling.
The Ontario native plays the improbably named Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist carrying the heavy burden of rescuing all life on Earth from a dying Sun. To do so, he must strike up an unlikely partnership with an alien in a similarly precarious position.
After all of the self-serious Oscars back-slapping, it promises a welcome dose of uncomplicated popcorn entertainment. Core to its appeals is likely to be the performance of Gosling, one of the most likeable performers of his generation.
Not sold on Gosling’s handsome everyman charms? Check out this selection from his considerable body of work and tell us that he hasn’t got it all.
Crazy, Stupid, Love
How do you make a good-looking, smooth-talking serial womaniser likeable? It’s simple really – you cast Ryan Gosling in the role. Crazy, Stupid, Love isn’t the best film on this list (it might just be the worst), but Gosling’s contribution as the handsome young advisor to Steve Carrell’s middle-aged divorcee shouldn’t be downplayed. This was a relatively early glimpse at the actor’s unique combination of quiet confidence, self-aware humour, and affable vulnerability that would come to win him a number of juicy Hollywood roles over the ensuing decade-and-a-half.
The Nice Guys
![The Nice Guys - Main Trailer [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/GQR5zsLHbYw/maxresdefault.jpg)
This criminally underseen film is an inspired comedy-noir two-hander, with Gosling and a grizzled Russell Crowe playing a pair of chalk-and-cheese ‘70s private detectives on the trail of a missing porn star. It’s got the kind of sharp, quippy script that you’d expect of a Shane Black movie, and its two leads deliver their lines with as much verve as any of the great buddy cop pairings of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Gosling’s Holland March is all goofy swagger and borderline incompetence, yet you can’t help but root for him as he takes another punch to the noggin.
Half Nelson
Half Nelson was an important film in Gosling’s career, marking his emergence as a serious grown up actor capable of playing fully fleshed out and complex characters. His performance as a young middle-school history teacher in a tough Brooklyn school strikes just the right notes, able to convince audiences as to his character’s capacity to inspire his students while not trivialising his serious substance abuse problems. It would earn Gosling the first of his three Academy Awards nominations at the age of just 26.
First Man
Project Hail Mary isn’t the first time Gosling has played a heroic astronaut venturing out where no man has gone before. He played the daddy of all heroic astronauts in 2018 when he took the lead role in First Man, Damien Chazelle’s biopic of Neil Armstrong. Gosling plays the first man on the moon with all the unshowy decency and resolve you’d expect of such an American national treasure, while simultaneously reflecting the pain and vulnerability brought about by his tragic family circumstances.
Blue Valentine
This emotionally devastating indie from 2010 stars Gosling and Michelle Williams as a pair of struggling lovers. Blue Valentine’s genius is in the way it closely and unflinchingly follows the highs and lows of their relationship, from the early flutters of attraction through the challenges of raising a child, and on through the steady faltering of their marriage. Gosling and Williams are both at the top of their game, making you hope against hope that these two believably flawed people can figure it out, even though you know they probably shouldn’t.
Barbie
Who else could have played Ken to Margo Robbie’s Barbie in Greta Gerwig’s arch 2023 smash hit? Who else in Hollywood has the ability to play a meathead stud with a puppy dog dependency, undercut by a burning – indeed borderline unhinged – sense of insecurity? No one, that’s who. And if you dare say “Glen Powell” to us, we might just have to challenge you to a dance battle. The big G is in a field of one, capable of flitting between alpha and beta energy at the drop of a pink cowboy hat.
Blade Runner 2049
Ryan Gosling didn’t so much play the Harrison Ford role in 2017’s risky sci-fi sequel – Ford himself had that covered, albeit in older and humbler form. But the actor was definitely required to fill a sizeable ‘sullen detective’ void left by the ageing star some 35 years on from the original. He did so with in some style, offering a mixture of icy reserve and deep humanity, laced with outbursts of brutal violence, that would have made Rick Deckard proud.
Drive
Nicolas Refn’s films are hard to love, their chilly emotional distance and excessive stylisation making it at times almost impossible to connect with their characters. There’s a reason 2011’s Drive managed to break through and woo audiences, and it’s only partly to do with Johnny Jewel’s swooning synth soundtrack. Gosling imbues his emotionally distant getaway driver with an immense amount of pathos, such that even his occasional outbursts of extreme violence fail to make us turn against him. He’s a real hero, alright – if a slightly disturbed one.
La La Land
Gosling was really showing off with La La Land. He sings! He dances! He plays a mean jazz piano! He forms one half of the most heart-breakingly doomed romances in modern cinematic history! More to the point, he completely convinces as a struggling jazz musician seeking to make a name for himself on the Los Angeles scene, all while trying and failing to maintain a healthy relationship with Emma Stone’s up and coming actor. It’s a truly multi-faceted (and Oscar-nominated) performance.
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