1980-present
Latest News: Ryan Gosling Performs "I'm Just Ken" at Oscars
Barbie actor Ryan Gosling had two key advisers for his star-studded Oscars performance: his two daughters.
Gosling, 43, said he received tips from his girls Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 7, during his rehearsals for “I’m Just Ken,” his Oscar-nominated song from the hit 2023 movie. “They are such a huge part of this for me... it was my girls’ interest in Barbie and disinterest in Ken that got me into this in the first place. It was beautiful to have them there at the end,” he told People.
The actor enlisted the help of a rock ’n’ roll legend for his performance. Iconic Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash (real name Saul Hudson) joined Gosling for a rock-heavy version of the viral ballad, also featuring fellow Ken actors Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir from the movie. Gosling also joined the audience for vocal help from Barbie co-stars Margot Robbie and America Ferrera and director Greta Gerwig.
The soundtrack from the highest-grossing film of 2023 was in the spotlight throughout the evening, as Billie Eilish and brother Finneas O’Connell later won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “What Was I Made For?”
Who Is Ryan Gosling?
Canadian actor Ryan Gosling is a three-time Academy Award nominee known for his roles in the movies The Notebook, La La Land, and Barbie. He first found success as a cast member on The All New Mickey Mouse Club in 1993. As an adult, Gosling made it big with the 2004 romantic hit The Notebook and garnered his first Oscar nomination two years later for Half Nelson. The actor has lent his talents to romantic comedies like Crazy, Stupid, Love; dramatic fare such as The Ides of March and The Big Short; the action movies Drive and Blade Runner 2049; as well as offbeat flicks like Lars and the Real Girl. His other Oscar nods resulted from his performances in 2016’s La La Land and the 2023 Barbie movie. Gosling is in a long-term relationship with fellow actor Eva Mendes, with whom he shares two kids.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Ryan Thomas Gosling
BORN: November 12, 1980
BIRTHPLACE: London, Canada
PARTNER: Eva Mendes
CHILDREN: Esmeralda and Amada
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
Young Life
Ryan Thomas Gosling was born on November 12, 1980, in London, Canada. He grew up in a working-class Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints family in Cornwall, another city within Ontario.
One of Sylvester Stallone’s action movies proved to be an early influence on the future thespian. “When I was in first grade I watched First Blood, and I filled my Fisher-Price Houdini kit with steak knives and brought them to school and started throwing them at kids in recess,” Gosling later told Maclean’s magazine. He was suspended for this dangerous reenactment, but he continued to be inspired by the movies he saw.
Mickey Mouse Club Cast Member and Young Hercules Star
Gosling caught his first big break in 1993 when he joined the cast of The All New Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show for young people that starred child actors known as Mouseketeers. He sang, danced, and acted alongside such future stars as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera. “I went through puberty in a theme park,” Gosling explained to Esquire magazine, about the show’s process of filming at Walt Disney World in Florida. “I’m grateful. That place was a landscape to me. I had adventures every day.”
After the show was canceled in 1994, Gosling went to work on other television series. He appeared in the teen comedy Breaker High from 1997 to 1998 before transitioning to a more mythical role. At age 17, Gosling moved to Los Angeles to star as the title character in the popular teen series Young Hercules.
Movies
Early Roles: Remember the Titans and The Notebook
For his movie debut, Gosling had a supporting role in the sports drama Remember the Titans (2000), starring Denzel Washington. His first breakthrough came in 2001’s The Believer. He played a Jewish neo-Nazi in the critically acclaimed movie, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. However, it wasn’t until 2004 and his starring turn in the romantic blockbuster The Notebook, opposite Rachel McAdams, that mainstream audiences sat up and took notice.
In 2006, Gosling received raves for his role as the drug-addicted teacher Dan Dunne in Half Nelson. The intense, moving performance earned him a Best Actor Academy Award nomination.
Always one to tackle diverse roles, Gosling played a young prosecutor in Fracture (2007), opposite Anthony Hopkins. He then went on to star as a shy, delusional man who forms a sincere attachment to a doll in the offbeat comedy Lars and the Real Girl (2007). For his performance, Gosling earned a Golden Globe nomination.
Drive, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Crazy, Stupid, Love
As his career developed, Gosling emerged both as a serious actor with impressive range and as one of Hollywood’s most popular sex symbols. He gave a strong performance alongside Michelle Williams in the 2010 indie drama Blue Valentine, which followed the downward spiral of a couple.
The following year proved to be big for the actor. In 2011, Gosling appeared in three very different types of movies: a romantic comedy, an edgy thriller, and a political drama. In Crazy, Stupid, Love, he played a smooth ladies’ man who tries to help a man going through a divorce (Steve Carell) before falling head-over-heels for a young woman played by Emma Stone. Moving on to a more action-oriented role, he then starred in Drive, about a stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver. That fall, Gosling costarred with George Clooney in The Ides of March, playing a smart and savvy press secretary to a politician.
Continuing to challenge himself and hone his craft, Gosling starred with Eva Mendes and Bradley Cooper in the crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines, which debuted at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. Reteaming with Stone, Gosling played a lawman out to fight organized crime figures like Mickey Cohen (played by Sean Penn) in Gangster Squad. The project had originally been set to debut in the fall of 2012, but after a gunman opened fire on a crowd inside a Colorado movie theater, the movie was delayed for revisions and pushed back to January 2013.
Oscar Nomination for La La Land
After starring in the 2013 crime drama Only God Forgives, Gosling made his directorial debut with 2014’s Lost River. The movie, which he also wrote and produced, stars Christina Hendricks as a beleaguered single mom. The following year, the actor costarred with Christian Bale, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt in The Big Short. Based on the nonfiction best-seller by Michael Lewis, the movie focused on the housing market bubble that fueled the 2008 financial collapse and a group of men who’d predicted the turmoil to come. The Big Short garnered multiple Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations.
In 2016, Gosling teamed with Russell Crowe in the dark comedy The Nice Guys and also dove into the musical comedy realm with La La Land, costarring Emma Stone. La La Land proved to be a massive hit, garnering a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations and winning six. Gosling received his second nod for Best Actor, though he again went home empty-handed.
Blade Runner 2049
In 2017, after joining the ensemble cast for Terrence Malick’s romantic drama Song to Song, Gosling returned to more mainstream fare with Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to the 1982 Harrison Ford vehicle.
Gosling next starred as famed astronaut Neil Armstrong in 2018’s First Man, about the NASA mission to send a man to the moon in the 1960s. After that, he linked with Chris Evans and Ana de Armas for the 2022 Netflix action thriller The Gray Man.
Playing Ken in Barbie
Gosling had a memorable role in 2023’s highest-grossing movie, Barbie, based on the popular Mattel doll of the same name. Starring Margot Robbie as the primary iteration of the titular character and directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie featured an ensemble cast including Gosling as Barbie’s male counterpart Ken.
Gosling was responsible for one of the movie’s most memorable sequences, singing the ballad “I’m Just Ken” and participating in a dance battle with another version of the character played by Simu Liu. His performance was praised by critics, earning Gosling supporting actor nominations at both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards.
Next, the actor is set to appear in The Fall Guy, an action-comedy also starring Emily Blunt.
Partner Eva Mendes and Kids
Since 2011, Gosling has been in a romantic relationship with actor Eva Mendes. The pair starred together in The Place Beyond the Pines that year. Their official status has been the subject of speculation for years as the couple has closely guarded their relationship.
In September 2016, Us Weekly reported that Gosling and Mendes were secretly wed earlier that year. More recently, Mendes has seemingly confirmed the two are, in fact, married. During a November 2022 appearance on Channel Nine’s Today show in Australia, she remarked, “Everyone is so welcoming here, and my husband, Ryan, is here and we are having the best time.” She also posted a picture to Instagram showing off a “de Gosling” wrist tattoo, suggesting she had added the actor’s surname to her own.
The couple has two children together. In the summer of 2014, news broke that they were expecting their first child. Their daughter Esmeralda was born that September. Then in April 2016, Mendes gave birth to the couple’s second daughter named Amada.
Prior to his long-term relationship with Mendes, Gosling was romantically linked to other costars such as Sandra Bullock and Rachel McAdams.
Gosling has worked to promote several social causes, including AIDS research, poverty relief, and the humane treatment of animals. He likes to box and to make furniture, a skill he picked up while making The Notebook. Gosling is also an accomplished jazz guitarist and singer who has a band called Dead Man’s Bones.
Height
According to his IMDb profile, Gosling stands just over 6 feet tall.
Net Worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Gosling’s total fortune is estimated at around $70 million.
Quotes
- I went through puberty in a theme park.
- When I was in first grade I watched First Blood, and I filled my Fisher-Price Houdini kit with steak knives and brought them to school and started throwing them at kids in recess.
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Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
