It seems that the genius behind La La Land, Damien Chazelle, can’t get enough of Ryan Gosling. The musical director has claimed that Gosling – who he worked with on both La La Land and the science fiction movie First Man – is one of the greatest living actors.
Speaking at the Toronto Film Festival, Chazelle told Entertainment Weekly, “In a way, it’s the same thing you can say about a lot of the greatest film actors. Something that feels like it’s fundamental to film acting as opposed to other kind of acting is the art of conveying a ton by seeming to do very little.”
“It goes back to the earliest silent film actors if you think of Chaplin or Valentino,” he continued. “There’s a few people, not many, who, if you just park the camera on their face they can tell a whole story with only the slightest fluctuation of the brow or their eyebrows or their lips or even with no movement at all. Just holding a certain kind of expression.”
“Ryan is one of the handful of people today who have really mastered that art form,” he finished. “Acting as an art form has existed for millennia. It’s one of the oldest art forms we have. But the art of film acting is still much younger, and something that is really specific to film acting is being able to convey a whole saga in a close-up.”
Unfortunately, Gosling won’t appear in Chazelle’s new comedy movie Babylon. Set during the roaring ’20s, Babylon focuses on a motley crew of actors as Hollywood transitions from silent films to “talkies”. The film boasts an all-star cast including Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Li Jun Li, Jean Smart, and even Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire.
No Ryan Gosling, though. If you want to see Gosling, you’re going to have to watch Barbie.