Music: {allcanada} Is Ryan Gosling really quitting?

Saturday, October 1, 2011

{allcanada} Is Ryan Gosling really quitting?

LOS ANGELES -- It seems Ryan Gosling may be having a change of heart about quitting acting.

"I just meant I wanted some time off," the super-busy Gosling told cast members last week on the set of his new movie, Gangster Squad, now shooting at the Hollywood Warner Bros. studios.

"I'm not a fool, I know acting is a great gig."

This information comes from an actor who has been working daily with Gosling. The actor, who needs to remain anonymous, told me Gosling is getting defensive because the cast and crew members are busting his chops about an interview he gave last month to the UK newspaper, The Times.

The critically acclaimed Notebook, Half Nelson and Drive actor was quoted as saying, "I've been doing this since I was 12. I don't want to act much longer, I can't do one thing my whole life."

Said my actor source: "We think he's nuts for saying that. This is the best job in the world."

The actor said there's been a couple of small pranks played on Gosling because of his Times interview.

Gosling plays a staff police sergeant in Gangster Squad -- a film that chronicles the LAPD's fight to keep east coast type Mafia guys out of the city during the '40s and '50s. Gosling's character is the protagonist hero who takes on Sean Penn's true-life gangster character, Mickey Cohen.

Apparently, anyone who can get a hand on one of the tissues used to blot Gosling's face in between takes is saying, "I'm selling it on e-Bay!"

"We say, 'Hey Ryan, can we keep your tissues?' "

Gosling, 30, is taking it all in stride.

"Keep the tissues, but stop pushing me out already!"

The actor said Gosling -- who has top billing over Academy Award winner Penn -- doesn't look like someone who's sick of the job.

"He's awesome. He comes to work early, his lines are worked out, he's put together nice. He doesn't look bored, he looks happy.

"I'm sorry, but if he really wants to quit, he sure doesn't seem like it."

Gosling told The Times one of the reasons he wants to give up the role of thespian is that he's running out of interesting characters to play.

"I know there are only so many characters I'll be able to play. It will be over whenever the inspiration dries up," he said.

But wouldn't anyone say this if they were as over-extended as Gosling, without a minute to think?

This summer alone, he carried both Crazy, Stupid, Love. and Drive. He also did The Ides of March with George Clooney, which is out Oct. 7.

Plus he's still in the studio putting the finishing touches on The Place Beyond the Pines.

Once he's done with Gangster Squad and The Place Beyond the Pines, he immediately must learn his character and lines for the crime thriller Only God Forgives.

These are all tough, big-budget movies and Gosling is the leading man on all of them.

It's a brutal, exhausting schedule. In between, he has to do publicity for the films and field calls from men's fashion magazines about modeling for their covers.

Gosling is clearly an intelligent actor going through an existential crisis simply because he's worn thin.

"What's it all for? Can I be as good every time?" These are obviously the thoughts running through his head.

Note to Gosling's booking agent: Take it easy on our boy, would you? Let him take a vacation, let him breathe. We want him making movies for a long, long time.