A CLASSIC MOVIE STAR
Gosling had ‘it’ at early age
Veteran Canadian actor/director/ writer Rob Stewart has always known that London, Ont.’s, Ryan Gosling was going to be a huge star.
“I told people he was going to be the next Jimmy Stewart,” Toronto’s Stewart said, comparing Gosling with one of Hollywood’s greatest leading men.
“I absolutely called that one. I’m proud of that. He’s very good. I knew he would be a star.”
Gosling just earned his second Academy Award nomination for Actor in a Leading Role for his turn in director/writer Damien Chazelle’s musical, La La Land.
Chazelle and Gosling’s co-star, Emma Stone, were also tapped when the nominations for the 89th annual awards were announced Tuesday morning.
La La Land also has the honour of being the most-nominated film with 14 nods. That number matches the record previously held by Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950).
The Oscars will be handed out at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Feb. 26.
“I’m very grateful to the Academy for recognizing my work in La La Land. It was a true collaboration, so to see everyone else’s wonderful work on the film acknowledged so generously makes it even more special,” Gosling said in a statement released Tuesday.
Rob Stewart first came across Gosling in 1997 when he directed a teenage Gosling in multiple episodes of the TV comedy Breaker High.
Shot in Burnaby, Breaker High followed the antics of a group of students attending high school on a cruise ship.
Gosling played Sean, who was described as a wannabe ladies man/ nerd.
“I think he was 16 when I started working with him and from the first day, as soon as I started working with him, I knew he was going to be successful,” said Stewart, who has a long resume, including starring roles in Incorporated, Suits, Killjoys and Sweating Bullets.
“He was the most focused, the most polite. The role was comedy, which is always the toughest. It’s very difficult to get when you are young, to do more than just a child acting silly. It’s all about timing. There is a bunch of technical things that go into it and he did it effortlessly.
“He was just so easy to work with,” added Stewart, pointing out the show’s tight shooting schedule made for some big demands on the young actors.
Vancouver actor Anne Openshaw, who played teacher Ana Mitchell on Breaker High, was equally impressed with the young Gosling.
“When I first met him I thought this is a 16-year-old, but he is like a 40-year-old man. I never met anybody like that. He’s a genius, just an old soul,” said Openshaw, whose resume of film and TV credits includes The Grey and Stargate. “He knew a lot. He was very educated in the arts.
“I had a crush on him and I was 28,” Openshaw said with a laugh.
“He was so good. So together, smart.”
Leading up to Hollywood’s biggest night, Gosling already has a Golden Globe win for his role of idealistic, jazz-piano player Sebastian, and is nominated for BAFTA (British Oscars) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards.
La La Land is a film reminiscent of the classic MGM musicals from the 1950s.
It has Gosling and Stone as two ambitious young lovers singing and dancing their way across a stunningly lit and often dreamlike Los Angeles.
“That didn’t surprise me in the least,” said Stewart about Gosling’s musical triumph. “What surprised me is that it took him so long to embrace that.”
Openshaw isn’t surprised by Gosling’s success playing a jazz-piano player. He remembers noticing on the Breaker High set that Gosling, who plays multiple instruments, had his personal space kitted out with posters of old jazz greats and piles of records.
“I remember seeing his jazz collection and asking him, ‘ How do you know about all this?’ ” Openshaw said.
Challenging Gosling for this year’s best-actor Oscar are: Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea), Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge), Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic), and Denzel Washington (Fences).
Gosling joins eight other Canadians as official Oscar nominees. On the list are:
Howard Barish, co-producer (13th), documentary-feature; Sylvain Bellemare (Arrival), sound editing; Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye (Arrival), sound mixing; Shawn Levy, coproducer (Arrival), best picture; Theodore Ushev (Blind Vaysha), short film-animated, National Film Board of Canada; Patrice Vermette (Arrival), production design; and Denis Villeneuve (Arrival), directing.