Ryan Gosling was honored by the Santa Barbara Film Festival on Saturday night, and used his speech to reflect on his long journey to becoming Ken.
Receiving the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film at a dinner in Santa Barbara, Gosling mused how “up until this point, I’ve only ever thought about just how much cinema had done for me, I had never really thought about what I’ve done for cinema.”
He recalled how in third grade he had a swearing problem (joking, “I didn’t think it was a problem but my teachers did and I just thought they were being a bunch of uptight mother— wait.”) and struggled in school, until one of his teachers planned weekly visits to the library and made a deal that for every book the actor read he could rent a movie from the library’s collection.
The movies “were expanding my horizons but they were also teaching me how to dream, or how to dream bigger, anyway,” Gosling continued. “That whole experience, the filmmakers, the actors creating their own stories, my mother taking me out of school to show me how to create my own story — even at an early age film had opened a door that led to a world where daydreaming didn’t mean you were wasting time, it meant you were doing your job. A job I couldn’t wait to do, a job I started doing right away — if you count putting on hammer pants and dancing at the mall, or singing ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ at weddings during the garter belt ceremony.”
Gosling shouted out his Barbie director Greta Gerwig, who was in attendance at the event, for never letting the film’s cast forget how lucky they are to work in Hollywood as he noted, “I, for one, have been so lucky. I’ve gotten to go to the moon, be a motorcycle bank robber, a getaway driver, waltz through the stars, be an elementary school teacher — albeit a crack-addicted one — become a replicant from the future, a gangster from the past, a lovelorn stunt man, and most recently, thanks to Greta, a 70-year-old crotchless doll,” breaking down in laughter at the podium.
Gerwig presented Gosling with his honor, toasting him for his performance as Ken and praising that “he is such a delicious and unexpected combination of genius.”
“He has the burning intensity of Marlon Brando, he has the exquisite comedic pang of John Barrymore, the tragic realism of Montgomery Clift and the virtuosic showmanship of John Travolta and the sly wit of Gene Wilder,” Gerwig added.
Steve Carell, who has worked with Gosling on Crazy Stupid Love and The Big Short, was also on hand to speak about the star, remembering the two were once talking about their plans for the weekend and Gosling said his band was going to play a gig at a senior center in Glendale on a Friday night.
“Isn’t that just adorable? A movie star would have told that story on a talk show, would have used it, would have gotten some juice out of it, monetized it, maybe it goes viral as a GIF or a meme, #RyanAtTheSeniorCenter,” Carell teased, deadpanning, “But not Ryan Gosling, he did it just to make some old folks happy. And I find that annoying as hell.”
