“It was an eye-opening experience”: the Elvis impersonator who inspired Ryan Gosling to greatness
Ryan Gosling has experienced a rather meteoric rise to success over the past few decades, starting out as a Disney star and becoming an Oscar-nominated icon. Appearing in everything from romantic comedies to action movies, melodramas, quirky indie movies, and musicals, Gosling has asserted himself as one of modern Hollywood’s most beloved stars.
Gosling rose to prominence in the early 2000s, earning his first Academy Award nomination for his role in Half Nelson. However, two years before that, he had impressed rom-com lovers with his role in The Notebook alongside Rachel McAdams, a movie still heralded as one of the finest of the genre. From there, he earned more critical praise for roles in movies like the emotionally devastating Blue Valentine and the bizarre Lars and the Real Girl, in which he played a man who forms a romantic relationship with a sex doll.
Proving himself to be open to a wide variety of roles, Gosling has always loved to perform. He attained more widespread appreciation after starring in movies like Drive, Only God Forgives, The Nice Guys, The Big Short, Blade Runner 2049, and, of course, La La Land. Putting his singing and dancing abilities on display in the latter, the actor earned another Oscar nomination and launched himself even further into Hollywood stardom.
He demonstrated these talents again when he appeared as the tanned male doll Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, performing the comedic song ‘I’m Just Ken’ and spawning a phenomenon, even taking to the Oscars stage for a rendition. Clearly unafraid to make himself look a bit silly, Gosling approaches everything with a fearlessness, possessing enough faith in his talents to succeed every time.
This sense of confidence and love of performing stems from his experiences as a child, particularly the moment his uncle decided to become an Elvis Presley impersonator. The actor told the Telegraph, “He showed me there was a whole other world out there.” Gosling was just seven years old, but he knew that he had found something that interested him.
“We were living very normal kind of boring lives and then my uncle came to live with us and one day he showed up in a dazzling white jumpsuit and said he was going to be an Elvis impersonator and he wanted us all to be in his act,” he continued.
“Life got really fun for a little while. He started talking, walking and singing like Elvis and it was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to our family and in our town. It was so exciting that everyone wanted to be involved. So my father became head of his security, my mother became a back-up singer, I became a back-up dancer and suddenly we were all in his act.”
Gosling explained that the act only lasted for six months before his uncle stopped being Elvis, and as a result, he was craving more. “I was left feeling, ‘What has just happened? Can we do it again?’ It was a pretty eye-opening experience because I didn’t know that entertainment was really a job and that show business was something you could really do. So I started in my own way trying to keep that energy alive and put myself into dance classes and I took as many classes as I could to try and get back into that world.”
