The co-star who infuriated Anthony Hopkins: “For god’s sake, shoot it!”
Ryan Gosling is a joy to behold on screen. His electric creative instinct leads him to make unpredictable and magnetic choices that have enthralled audiences around the world. From his spontaneous eruption of the word ‘sublime’ during Barbie to his stoic melancholia in Drive, you cannot predict what he will do in any given scene, leading to a mesmerising body of work that defies easy categorisation.
He was one of the youngest to be nominated for ‘Best Actor’ at the Oscars after his performance in Half Nelson, managing to find early success through his work on independent projects like Blue Valentine, Lars and the Real Girl and Song to Song. However, since the beginning days of his career, he has gone on to become one of the most popular leading men in Hollywood, with an eternally inquisitive approach to his craft that riled up one of his former co-stars.
Fracture, directed by Gregory Hoblit in 2007, follows a man who is on trial for murdering his wife in a seemingly black-and-white case. However, a number of twists and turns lead the ambitious district attorney to embark on a game of cat and mouse with the defendant and try to discover the truth. Gosling stars alongside Anthony Hopkins, who was perhaps one of the biggest Hollywood heavyweights he had worked with at that point in his career.
While he was presumably eager to make a lasting impression on the acting titan, this went slightly pear-shaped after Hopkins revealed his frustrations at Gosling’s creative methods.
When describing Gosling’s approach to his craft, Hoblit said, “In one take, there may be eight things that are really interesting that he’s doing and two where you’re just going, ‘What the hell is that all about?’ Then you do another take, and there’s eight more things that are interesting, and the two other things went away. There’s just never a boring moment when the camera lands on him.” While this is endlessly fascinating to the audience, Hopkins found it harder to find patience for his particular energy as a collaborator.
Hopkins described his scenes with Gosling, saying, “He wanted to become involved in the analysis of the plot and all that. I was concerned we were going to talk it into oblivion. I get so bored, ‘For God’s sake, shoot it!’” After regrouping for another scene later on, Hopkins had a lightbulb moment that made him regret this response, saying, “I apologised to him at the reshoot. I said I misunderstood this, and I could see now what he was fighting for.”
Some actors reiterate the importance of curiosity when fleshing out a character or scene. When shooting the final season of Succession, for example, a similar clash occurred between Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox, with the latter expressing impatience at Strong’s methodical and forensic approach to acting. Perhaps an older generation of actors has less time or patience for the creative process after doing it for so many years. Still, regardless, the likes of Gosling and Strong prove that this approach is entirely worthwhile and leads to resonant and impactful work.
