Date : October 10, 2007

Ryan Gosling, 27, is used to sharing the spotlight with his leading ladies.

In The Notebook, he and Rachel McAdams had that MTV-award-winning "best kiss." In Murder by Numbers, he played alongside Sandra Bullock. (Both are women he reportedly later dated.)

But none of his female leads compare to Bianca, the life-size silicone doll who is his co-star in Lars and the Real Girl.

In the film, Gosling plays an introverted nice guy who develops a delusional - and adorably sincere - relationship with a 120-pound sex doll.

Sure, it sounds ludicrous. But this heartfelt film - written by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver - is one of those quirky little movies you have to see to understand.

We sat down with Gosling, who was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year (for Half Nelson), to find out more about the film, his relationship with Bianca, his tattoo and more.

Q: What did you think when Lars and the Real Girl was first pitched to you?

A: When I got the script, I called somebody and said, "Did you read this?" And he said, "No, but I think it's about a guy and a sex doll." ... I had no idea what to expect. A guy and a sex doll? It seemed like it could never hold up for a whole film. And then I read it and was crying at the end of the script. It's the script you always hope you'll read.

Q: It's a strange concept for a movie. How do you describe it to people?

A: It lives in the same building - it's in the same apartment complex - as Harvey, and Harold and Maude. There's something about those films, they're genres unto themselves. ... Those films where you think they'll never make anything else like them. And when I read this script I thought, "Man, this is my opportunity."

Q: Do you think it's going to be a word-of-mouth kind of movie?

A: It'll have to be. It's a hard movie to define, which is what makes it special. My fear is that people will write it off and say, "Oh yeah, it's a guy and a sex doll," because it's so much more than that.

Q: This movie could have so easily gone wrong. What kept it on track?

A: Craig Gillespie. The director. You'd think as soon as you get a guy into a room with a sex doll, (nobody) is ever going to take it seriously. But somehow Craig managed to do it, and it's because he took it seriously. He was not making a comedy at all. He was dead serious that this was not a comedy and that (Bianca the doll) will never be the butt of the joke. And I said to him, "How are you going to shoot her?" and he said, "I'm going to shoot her like she has a nudity clause in her contract," and I thought, "Okay, this is going to be great."

Q: Was there just one doll?

A: She had a stunt double. You know, for anything that was too dangerous.

Q: Did you ever think, "Oh, this is never going to work?"

A: No. I knew it was going to work. As soon as I saw her. She came to the read-through.

Q: You mean the doll?

A: Yeah. And I was looking at her, when we were doing the read-through, and I just knew it was going to work.

Q: You did the read-through with Bianca?

A: Yeah. She was next to me. And I kept looking at her and - she's so beautiful. She had a real presence.

Q: So there was a lot of chemistry between you and her?

A: There was chemistry. I found her endlessly fascinating. I could look at her forever. I would do scenes with her and I would think, "Oh my God, she blinked." Or, "She just looked at me, and she turned her head." She was so lifelike.

Q: Were there any temptations? You know, set her up ...

A: No. I mean, the idea for the movie is that we would never objectify her and that we'd all respect her like a real person - like Lars did.

Q: Why isn't the doll here?

A: She's at my house.

Q: Really?

A: Yeah. (Laughing)

Q: You took her home?

A: Yeah. Well, I have a Bianca, and Craig has a Bianca. I took her out the other night. We went out to play pool. That's the thing - they dropped her off at my house and I was going to go out that night and I thought, "I can't really leave her." I felt bad leaving her. I was like, "Aw, well, I guess I'll bring her." So I brought her out to the bar. But as soon as you bring Bianca, the whole party livens up.

Q: So do you, like, change her and dress her?

A: I bought her some outfits. I employed the help of a friend of mine. I said, "Just get her whatever she wants."

Q: I'm having a really hard time taking you seriously.

A: No, I'm serious.

Q: I mean, it's okay, if you're keeping the doll ...

A: Is it? It's going to have to be.

Q: But isn't she going to get in the way of your future relationships?

A: Well, you know, we don't have a physical relationship. We're just buddies. (Laughing) And any girl who can't accept that is not my kind of girl.

Q: You got into acting at age 13 when you got a part on the Mickey Mouse Club. What was that like?

A: It was a business decision at a very young age. I was training to be a dancer. There was this audition where I had to dance; it was the Mickey Mouse Club, which I had never seen but you had to be able to sing and dance and act, and I could kind of do those things. And when the show was over, my parents had split up, and we had a choice: My mom could get a job as a secretary, and we could go to school and kind of get by. Or we could try this acting thing and see how that works out. Because they pay you pretty good money for a little bit of work.

Q: So you helped support the family?

A: Well, I did financially, but they supported me in what I wanted to do. But it took us to way more exciting places than if my mom had just gotten a secretary job. But it was a job. ... Because it had never occurred to me that you could have a job that you liked. My dad worked at a paper mill, and he didn't like that; my mom was a secretary, and she didn't like that. So for me, you just worked to make money. That was it. And when I was making The Believer, I was like, "Wait, I'm having fun, and they're paying me to do this." So that's when I started to take acting way too seriously.

Q: Too seriously? You have done a lot of serious movies.

A: Yeah. But I was younger when I did that stuff. You know, I was young and brooding.

Q: Why haven't you done any comedies?

A: The stuff I read, they're not movies that I think are funny. They just don't make me laugh. ... I think (comedy) is a real art form, but it's not for everybody.

Q: They say actors become actors because they're missing something inside.

A: Well, you know actors - they need to be the centre of attention.

Q: You seem like you're pretty humble.

A: It's an act. I have a gigantic ego.

Q: What's your tattoo of?

A: A naked lady and a skeleton.

Q: When did you get it?

A: A while ago.

Q: Like, when you were a kid?

A: Yeah. When I was like 8. (Laughing) That'd be awesome if at 8 I got this tattoo. No, I got it a few years ago.

Q: What made you get that particular picture?

A: I just liked it. When I was a kid, there was a janitor at our school who was covered in tattoos, and he always had naked ladies and skeletons. I always thought that there was no other tattoo. It was a naked lady and a skeleton and that's it.

Q: Going to get more?

A: I don't know; they make it difficult for work. But if I had my way, I'd look like that janitor. I thought he was the coolest-looking dude I ever saw.

Q: So what's your favourite kind of food?

A: I'm big into Moroccan food now, because I have a Moroccan restaurant. ... It's called Tagine.

Q: Why did you open a Moroccan restaurant?

A: Because my buddy's Moroccan, and he's a great chef, and I thought he should have a restaurant.

Q: How often do you go there?

A: I go there a lot. I worked there for the first year.

Q: So what kind of movie will you never do?

A: Something I wouldn't do right now might be something I'll be trying to convince everybody to let me do three years from now. I never thought I'd do a love story when I did The Notebook. And then I realized that in some way, all the movies that I make are love stories. There's no reason to make a movie if it's not about love.

Q: You've dated some of the women you've been in movies with, right? I imagine it's pretty easy to get close to someone when you're working together like that.

A: Yeah. It's hard not to.

Q: So I guess you're dating Bianca now?

A: Kind of. (Quietly) If only she were alive ... we'd be married.

Lars and the Real Girl is scheduled to open in Montreal on Nov. 2.

Interview by Melissa Heckscher

Source : Montreal Gazette