Ryan Gosling got ‘Notebook’ role because he’s neither “handsome” nor “cool”

Here are some more photos of Ryan Gosling on the set of Gangster Squad to update from the last batch. He’s a pretty handsome guy, and I can definitely see what all the fuss is about even if he doesn’t really float my boat. I think it goes back not so much to watching him on “Mickey Mouse Club” (because I didn’t really watch much Disney in my own youth) but more of memories from his stint on “Breaker High.” To me, he still looks like the same young pseudo punk, and there’s still too much “eau de faking it” to be found in Gosling’s demeanor. Sure, he’s a fine actor and looks great in motion, but I can’t help but feel uneasy when checking out these freeze frame shots like he’s trying to pull a fast one on the entirety of the world:

Maybe it’s just me though or perhaps it’s the whole nice guy who does ballet and just wants to find The One while he simultaneously tries to hide his DUI past and lets his bad dog pee in the corner at yoga class routine. It just bugs, you know? Here’s more of Ryan with co-star Josh Brolin, who is a legitimate badass (not necesarily a good thing in real life either) and looks completely natural in these shots:

At the moment, however, Ryan is promoting something besides Gangster Squad, which is still filming. Maybe he’s kickstarting his own personal Oscar campaign or thinking of dumping Eva Mendes and taking some other chick to Disneyland. No telling what he’s up to really, but Ryan has dredged up his 2004 turn in The Notebook (the adaptation of yet another schmaltzy Nicholas Sparks novel). Ryan wants us all to know that he wasn’t cast for his good looks; on the contrary, he asserts that the role arrived courtesy of his “regular guy” nature and the fact that he is neither “handsome” or “cool.” Um, okay:

Millions of women and men would disagree with director Nick Cassavetes — who cast a then-unknown Ryan Gosling in The Notebook because, well, he wasn’t that cute.

Now one of the most sought-after hunks in Hollywood, the Drive actor, 31, was just a Mickey Mouse Club alum and indie movie actor when Cassavetes was casting for his now-beloved 2004 romantic film.

“The director, Nick Cassavetes, called me to meet him at his house,” Gosling tells British magazine Company. “When I got there, he was standing in his back yard, and he looked at me and said, ‘I want you to play this role because you’re not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You’re not handsome. you’re not cool, you’re just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts.'”

Gosling went on to star in the smash film opposite fellow Canadian Rachel McAdams — whom he dated and was briefly engaged to.

And despite his leading man status today, Gosling tells the mag he grew up a “lonely child. I didn’t do well at school and TV was my only friend.”

It was watching the small screen that inspired him to go Hollywood himself. “Then, one day, I saw Raquel Welch on The Muppet Show. She was dancing with this big furry spider and I immediately fell in love. She was the first crush I ever had, and I thought, ‘How do I get to meet this woman?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, she’s on TV, so to meet her I have to get on TV myself.'”

[From Us Magazine]

So basically, Ryan is pushing the image of being a lonely child and an ugly duckling that was pushed out of his shell after becoming enraptured with the likes of Raquel Welch, who is completely gorgeous and a very glamorous sex symbol in her own right. Yet she’s not the typical crush for a budding young actor, right? Hmm.

Photos courtesy of Fame