And yes, even Ryan Gosling can get fired… just before the start of filming and by Peter Jackson what’s more! Back to the facts.
At the Hollywood Reporter’s annual Actors’ Roundtable in 2010, Ryan Gosling, who was hosting his cult hit Blue Valentine at the time, recounted how he was fired from the set of Lovely Bones the year before after a disagreement with the director, Peter Jackson, about the vision of the character he was to embody: namely Jack Salmon, a role which fell to Mark Wahlberg at the last minute.
The reason for their disagreement: to prepare for the role, Ryan Gosling had grown a beard, while following an intense diet which made him gain no less than 27 kilos. It was above all this weight gain – due to his consumption of melted Häagen-Dazs ice cream when he was thirsty, he revealed – which did not suit the director of Lord of the Rings, nor the producers of Lovely Bones. For Ryan Gosling however, she was part of how he viewed Jack Salmon’s grieving father character.
“We had a different idea of what the character would look like“, said Ryan Gosling to the Hollywood Reporter. “I really thought he should weigh 210 pounds (95 kilos).”
20th century Fox Mark Wahlberg in “Lovely Bones” (2009)
Peter Jackson totally disagreeing, thanked Ryan Gosling a few days before the start of production in 2007 – or even the day before according to some sources.
“We didn’t talk much during the pre-production process, which was the problem“, added Ryan Gosling. “It was a huge movie, and there was so much to handle, and he couldn’t handle the actors individually. I arrived on set and I had it all wrong.”
Another version of the facts: too young?
The collaborator and wife of Peter JacksonFran Walsh, had, for her part, given a slightly different version of events a year earlier, again in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
“Ryan came to us two or three times and said, ‘I’m not the right person for this role. I am too young’. And we said, ‘No, no, no. We can make you old. We can lighten your hair.’ We were very enthusiastic.”
“It wasn’t until we were in pre-production and we had the cast there that it became more and more clear: he was so uncomfortable from then on, and we started to feel that he wasn’t the right person. It was our blindness, the desire to make it stick [avec lui] whatever happens.”
As a reminder, Lovely Bones tells the story of a murdered young girl who, from beyond, observes her family in shock at her disappearance and monitors her murderer, as well as the progress of the investigation. The film, carried by Saoirse Ronan, Mark WahlbergRachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci, notably earned the latter an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.
Race results, whether he felt too young or his weight was an issue (or both), Ryan Goslinghe was not part of the adventure and concluded: “Then I was fat and unemployed.” Don’t panic though, we know, that didn’t stop him and his career has since taken off.
But this role is obviously not the only one that the La La Land and Barbie actor almost played. From Batman v Superman to Fifty Shades of Grey, including 28 Days Later, we could have seen him in a whole host of films: discover a list of 10 roles he almost played here.
Lovely Bones can be seen again on VOD. Ryan Gosling can be found in Barbie, currently available for streaming on MyCanal.