Ryan Gosling has had quite a year for himself. He’s earned positive reviews in Crazy Stupid Love, Drive, and, most recently, The Ides of March. It’s quite a run for the 31 year-old actor, especially since he was hand-picked by The Ides of March director/co-writer/star George Clooney for the lead role in that film.
Gosling recently talked about his experience working both for and with Clooney and the stellar cast of The Ides of March as well as his worst audition story ever in the video below.
When asked if he knew whether or not the films he decides to star in will be any good, Gosling remarks that a lot of it depends on who he’s working with. He explains, “For instance with this it’s George [Clooney]. You can look at George’s track record and kind of know what kind of movie he’s gonna make.” When asked if he had any qualms about signing up for the film even though he didn’t have to audition, Gosling replies, “It’s one of those things… when George Clooney calls you, you say yes.”
The cast of The Ides of March includes three Oscar winners (Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Marisa Tomei) and the Oscar-nominated Paul Giamatti. Did Gosling find it challenging to work with such a marquee cast? He admits that it was. “The whole film was a challenge because I was working with a lot of my favorite actors, and I was trying to be in the scenes with them but I was also fighting, wanting to just watch them, you know, and like get my picture with them. Then I realized I was getting my picture with them, in a way.”
But Gosling’s career wasn’t always so rosy — he admits he’s had a bad audition or two. In fact, he recalls his worst audition story, and it’s pretty funny. He painfully recalls, “I auditioned for a war picture one time where there had no dialogue. I was just a solider being shot at. So I went into this empty room and they said ‘Okay, you’re getting shot at. Go.’ And I had to pretend, like, I was dodging bullets and then they would say ‘Jump into a foxhole! Now peek out from the foxhole! You just stepped in a land mine! You lost your foot! You’re bleeding out; getting tired, you know. A medic runs over to you; you’re better now. Hobble! Now find a tree. Climb into a tank!’ I didn’t get the part.”
Check out the rest the interview, which features Gosling’s childhood story of meeting professional wrestler The Ultimate Warrior, below:
