Ryan Gosling

Ryan Thomas Gosling was born in London, Ontario, Canada, to Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. He is the second of two children, with an older sister named Mandi. His ancestry includes French-Canadian, English, Scottish, and Irish roots. The Gosling family moved to Cornwall, Ontario, where Ryan was raised and home-schooled by his mother. He also attended Gladstone Public School and Cornwall Collegiate & Vocational School, where he performed well in Drama and Fine Arts. The family later relocated to Burlington, Ontario, where Ryan attended Lester B. Pearson High School.

Ryan first performed as a singer in talent contests with his sister. In January 1993, he attended an open audition in Montreal for the TV series *The Mickey Mouse Club* (*The All New Mickey Mouse Club*, 1989) and secured a spot on the show after competing against 17,000 other aspiring actors. During his two-year tenure on *MMC*, he lived with co-star Justin Timberlake's family. Though he received no formal acting training, Gosling transitioned into acting after *MMC*, appearing on the TV series *Young Hercules* (1998) and *Breaker High* (1997), as well as the films *The Slaughter Rule* (2002), *Murder by Numbers* (2002), and *Remember the Titans* (2000). He first attracted serious critical attention with his performance as the Jewish neo-Nazi in the controversial film *The Believer* (2001), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. He was cast in the part by writer-director Henry Bean, who believed that Gosling's strict upbringing gave him the insight to understand the character Danny, whose obsessiveness with the Judaism he was born into turns to hatred. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Male Lead in 2002 for the role and won the Golden Aries award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.

After appearing in the sleeper hit *The Notebook* (2004), Gosling won the dubious honor of being named one of the 50 Hottest Bachelors by *People* Magazine. More significantly, he was named the Male Star of Tomorrow at the 2004 Show West convention of movie exhibitors. Gosling reached a summit of his profession with his performance in *Half Nelson* (2006), which garnered him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. In a short time, he has established himself as one of the finest actors of his generation. Throughout the subsequent decade, he has become an internet fixation, a box office star, and a critical darling, having headlined *Blue Valentine* (2010), *Crazy, Stupid, Love* (2011), *Drive* (2011), *The Ides of March* (2011), *The Place Beyond the Pines* (2012), *The Nice Guys* (2016), and *La La Land* (2016). In 2017, he starred in the long-awaited science fiction sequel *Blade Runner 2049* (2017), with Harrison Ford. Ryan has two children with his partner, actress Eva Mendes.