Just after I finish typing up my piece on the specualtion over George Clooney’s departure from White Jazz, the speculation around Ryan Gosling‘s sudden flight from Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones has run rampant. The same LA Times article I quoted in the Clooney piece had this to say:
Peter Jackson was said to be quite surprised that Gosling had showed up to start work on “The Lovely Bones” looking like he’d donned a fat suit. According to sources, the 26-year-old Gosling had apparently told the director he was going to gain weight to age himself up to play the part of a grieving father, but Jackson was still expecting some movie star allure — not paunch and a beard. By Friday, Gosling had left the high-profile production over those pesky “creative differences,” and, by Sunday, he’d been replaced by 36-year-old Mark Wahlberg, who actually could be old enough to father a teenager.
And then Page Six had this to say:
“Peter couldn’t stand Ryan,” said one source. Though Variety reported that Gosling had “stepped down” and was replaced by Mark Wahlberg, our source said, “Ryan cut his own hair, and was fighting with wardrobe. He was so demanding . . . Peter booted him two days before filming started.”
Finally, Nikki Finke said this:
Ryan and Peter both believed that if he put on a little weight, and perhaps added a beard, that it would age him up. In the end, Ryan felt he couldn’t make the age leap in a way he felt good about.” Another source confirms there won’t be any lawsuit, but tells me about friction: Jackson “had a very hard time” with Gosling and was “irked” by his behavior. “Jackson didn’t want to work with him after spending time with him in Pittsburgh,” the insider says, “And the thought was that Ryan went overboard with the weight gain.”
The consistency in the chatter leads me to believe that Gosling didn’t end up looking exactly how they had expected and was also being a bit of a pain.
To my knowledge Gosling has never caused much of a stir on set and has been receiving praise from every corner of the globe for Lars and the Real Girl as well as the Oscar nomination he earned for Half Nelson a year ago. Perhaps the fanfare went to his head or perhaps it is all a bunch of BS – or maybe, just maybe – he is in fact BATMAN IN THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!!!! Ha, wouldn’t that be the kicker. Speculating is fun, I don’t know why I was so down on it.
By the way, I have no inside information on Justice League so don’t go quoting my sarcasm anywhere.
