Before he was “just Ken”, Ryan Gosling won the hearts of people all over the world with his role in The Notebook. Before the dominant Ryan Gosling memes were of cowboy hats and denim jackets, they were either based around cereal – look, the internet is odd – or him yelling at Rachel McAdams in the rain in one of the best romance movies of the 2000s.
The Notebook was the apex of the Nicholas Sparks adaptation gold rush in the noughties, when the author’s bibliography was devoured by Hollywood for an arsenal of soft-focus attempts to join the ranks of the best drama movies.
Arguably, The Notebook is among the best movies of this wave. It stars Gosling and McAdams as a lumber worker and an heiress who begin a romance in the 1940s, only to hit various melodramatic hurdles along the way. And don’t lie, you cried at the end.
In an interview with VH1, director Nick Cassavetes revealed that Gosling had some big ideas for the segment in the middle of the movie when his character, Noah, restores the Windsor Plantation. It gets him into the newspaper, recapturing the attention of McAdams’ Allie.
Apparently, Gosling thought it would be appropriate for Noah to burn the whole thing down.
Cassavetes said: “[Ryan] wants to talk to you about what he’s gonna do. He wants to go prepare for it, feel it, live it, explore other options for it. He’d come to me and say: ‘Why can’t I burn the house down?’ I’d say: ‘Because I don’t even know what that means’. And he’d say: ‘Cleansing my fire’.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this didn’t make the movie, but Cassevetes stressed that he had a “great relationship” with Gosling, even when they disagreed about the direction to take. We’d question whether he could have even started a fire with all of that rain around.
For more on Gosling, find out why he tried to kick Rachel McAdams off The Notebook and learn about how Ryan Gosling got one of his best movies because he’s not a leading man, apparently. We’ve also rounded up the best Ryan Gosling movies for you to enjoy and, while you’re on Gosling, you should read our Barbie review.
Meanwhile, look ahead to the most exciting new movies still to come in 2024.