The 2001 Ryan Gosling movie that made his mother cry: “My poor mother”
Before Ryan Gosling was Ken in Barbie, Sebastian in La La Land, or more recently, Ryland in Project Hail Mary, he sang and danced through childhood as a performer on The Mickey Mouse Club, something that helped him overcome challenges, like struggling to read and even getting suspended from school for bad behaviour.
He found himself by taking to the stage, and before he knew it, he was frequently appearing on TV, eventually landing a leading role in the 1998 show Young Hercules, but prior to that he had scored a few small film roles too, including 1996’s Frankenstein and Me and later 2000’s Remember the Titans, but it was The Believer, released the following year, which marked his first major leading film role.
Starring alongside the likes of Billy Zane and Summer Phoenix, the actor played a young Jewish man who becomes a neo-Nazi, inspired by the real story of Dan Burros.
It was an intense role to be handed so early on in his career, especially when you consider that he’d been a Disney star less than a decade before, but it was nothing he thought he couldn’t handle. His mum wasn’t so sure about it, though.
He was raised in a strict Mormon household, so for Gosling’s mother, Donna, to have to watch him play a Jewish neo-Nazi was quite a shock. In fact, when she was given the chance to watch The Believer for the first time, she burst into tears after ten minutes and escaped the theatre, taking solace in the bathroom away from the image of her son playing such a horrific man.
Gosling could only comfort her and reassure her that the role was not at all a reflection of himself, and it would simply take her some time to get used to seeing him play roles that were miles away from the man she’d raised.
She had no choice in the matter, really, because soon enough, the actor was signing onto some rather unusual or devastating indie projects, like the emotional battering that is Blue Valentine, or the movie about a man and his sex doll, Lars and the Real Girl.
“My poor mother, she doesn’t ask questions any more,” Gosling told The Guardian, “She just says, ‘Oh yeah, sex-doll movie. It’s great!’ She’s a really supportive mom”. Clearly, she has just had to get used to seeing her son morph into violent characters, loveable ones, musical ones, funny ones. Gosling has been nominated for three Oscars during his career, so I’m sure his mother feels nothing but pride for him now.
The actor wouldn’t have got there, though, if he hadn’t taken such a bold risk back in the early years of his career and showed his range by playing a neo-Nazi, putting himself out there as a star unafraid to take on a controversial role. Few actors would have the guts to do this before properly establishing themselves in Hollywood, but Gosling knew he could do it. And he certainly could, receiving significant praise for his performance, which was really just the beginning.
