By Tara Fowler
Okay, so there probably isn't much you don't know about RGos. If you're a true fan, you've likely heard this all before. But that doesn't mean you couldn't use a little refresher in advance of this weekend's "The Place Beyond the Pines." I mean, is there ever not a good time to talk about his torrid affair with Häagen-Dazs prior to "The Lovely Bones"? I didn't think so.
1) Those "Crazy Stupid Love" abs were real, but so was that time he melted down Häagen-Dazs and drank it: Gosling was supposed to play the father in Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones," but was unceremoniously fired after he showed up on set 60 pounds heavier. "I really believed [the character] should be 210 pounds. I was melting Häagen-Dazs and drinking it when I was thirsty," he confessed during an Oscar roundtable in 2010. "I really believed in it. I was excited about it." Unfortunately, Jackson did not agree with him, and Mark Wahlberg was ultimately hired to replace Gosling.
2) Justin Timberlake's mom was his legal guardian for a while: During an interview with GQ, Timberlake revealed that his mother served as Gosling's legal guardian for a year while they starred on "The Mickey Mouse Club." "Ryan's mom had to stay back in Canada," he explained. "[M]y mom was his guardian for a year, so he could come down and be on the show." A true bromance!
3) He might have corrupted Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera: While they were Mouseketeers, Spears and Aguilera came to Gosling with questions about sex. "I just told them what I heard — like positions and stuff," Gosling admitted to EW in 2002. "And all the mothers went to Disney and told them I was corrupting their kids... I feel somewhat responsible for how sexual she is right now. When I see her with a snake around her neck, I think, 'Did I do that?' "
4) He copied Marlon Brando's accent and now he can't get rid of it: "As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn't sound tough," he told W. "I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can't shake, so it's not phony anymore. I'm going for the Madonna thing, the Lady Gaga thing — a phony accent that becomes your trademark."
5) He bought a restaurant on a whim: It's called Tagine and you can find it in Beverly Hills. "I never really wanted to own it but one of my best friends called me one night, said his cousin was leaving town and needed to sell it," Gosling said. "My friend wanted to buy it but he said we had to do it that night. At the time I wasn't very busy so I spent all my money on this restaurant. I spent a year working in it and now I love it. I think it's one of the best restaurants in LA."
6) He once tried to tattoo himself: Like the true badass he is, Gosling attempted to ink himself with a monster holding a bloody heart: "One of my tattoos is supposed to be a monster's hand dropping a bloody heart but I did it myself with a tattoo kit so it looks like a cactus." After that, he left it to the professionals.
7) He thinks muscles are pointless: "That was a lot of work," he told "Extra" of his physique for "Crazy Stupid Love." It's such a waste of time. It takes so much time to make muscles and then they don't really do anything."
8) He nearly ruined "The Place Beyond the Pines" with his shirtlessness: Director Derek Cianfrance told Vanity Fair that carnival-goers ruined the opening shot of the film countless times by staring at Gosling's bare chest. "I had about a dozen [assistant directors] with Dr. Seuss hats to distract people and make sure they did not look in the camera and did not look at Ryan Gosling with his shirt off walking through the fair," Cianfrance said. "I would say that there were many takes ruined by people doing that."
