Ryan Gosling Doesn’t Take ‘Dark’ Roles Because of His Family
By Movieguide® Contributor
After decades of playing steamy romantics and violent loners, Ryan Gosling is now taking on more family-friendly roles to allow his kids to be a part of his career and to make movies they can see.
“I don’t really want to take roles that are going to put me in some dark place,” Gosling told The Wall Street Journal Magazine. “This moment is what I feel like trying to read the room at home and feel like what is going to be the best for all of us. The decisions I make, I make them with Eva and we make them with our family in mind first.”
His first movie under this mindset was LA LA LAND, and after taking a four-year hiatus from acting to spend time with his wife and kids, he has only taken on nicer roles.
“I think LA LA LAND was the first,” he said. “It was just sort of like, Oh, this will be fun for them too, because even though they’re not coming to set, we’re practicing piano every day or we’re dancing or we’re singing.”
“Their interest in Barbie and their disinterest in Ken was an inspiration,” he continued, moving on the last year’s hit BARBIE. “I thought, they were already making little movies about their Barbies on the iPad when it happened, so the fact that I was going off to work to make one too, we just felt like we aligned.”
The change in mindset has also caused him to make movies that appeal to a wider audience as he focuses on projects that he has a passion for rather than taking any role he can get to pay the bills.
“I want to make stuff that’s inclusive and that’s not for an audience of one…” he said. “It’s only recently that I feel like I realized that I have this opportunity to actually make the kind of films that made me love movies.”
His new movie, THE FALL GUY, for example, has something for everyone, featuring action, romance and comedy while focusing on an everyday man rather than a larger-than-life protagonist. He also already has a sequel for the movie sketched out, however, he made it for his own sake, rather than to pitch it as a second movie.
“We already know exactly what the sequel is – we, just for ourselves, wanted to know what happened to these characters,” he said.
Gosling and Eva prioritize family over everything else, even moving their girls out of L.A.
“For them, the most important job is their girls. Everything else comes second,” an insider told PEOPLE. “And their girls are thriving. They left L.A. to live a bit further north, away from Hollywood. They didn’t want the girls to grow up around other celebrity kids.”
“Eva and Ryan love their life. It’s admirable how they’ve been able to create balance and boundaries. They care so much about their marriage and just want their girls to live a happy life,” the source added.
“It always comes back to family first,” Gosling said last month. “I don’t think I’ll regret anything professionally, but I do think when it comes to Eva [Mendes] and the girls, they come first.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Gosling’s commitment to his family:
Ryan Gosling revealed that when he thinks about his plans for the future, he wants to prioritize his family and give his daughters the attention they deserve.
“I often think about what’s going to matter to me on my deathbed, that I did and that I didn’t do,” Gosling told Men’s Health. “I don’t think I’ll regret anything professionally, but I do think when it comes to Eva [Mendes] and the girls, they come first.”
“I don’t know, it’s probably not a good thing that I go deathbed, but it’s helpful for me,” he continued. “Anytime I’m struggling I just think about whether it’s going to matter to me then because, yeah, this whole thing can be distorting.”
Gosling and his wife, Mendes, recently prioritized their daughters by moving them out of L.A. to have a better childhood.
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