Gosling explains how Joe and Anthony Russo tormented him with carbs on the set of Netflixs new spy thriller.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Joe and Anthony, you’ve wanted to make this movie for years.
What was it about Ryan that made him the right person to beThe Gray Man?
Ryan Gosling in ‘The Gray Man’.Paul Abell/Netflix
RYAN GOSLING:Do you want me to leave?
So, to get the opportunity to work with him was fantastic.
This is a really interesting character who craves anonymity, who slips in and out of the shadows.
‘The Gray Man’.Paul Abell/Netflix
There are long stretches of the movie that don’t have a lot of dialogue.
Then, there are moments where he does talk, where he has to be very quirky and funny.
It’s very hard to find an actor who possesses Ryan’s range in that regard.
Anthony and Joe Russo, on the set of ‘The Gray Man’ with Chris Evans.Paul Abell/Netflix
He’s incredible with minimalism.
He can convey an entire interior life with just a few looks.
The movie is very much him coming out of that and emotionally committing.
Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in Netflix’s ‘The Gray Man’.Stanislav Honzik/Netflix; Paul Abell/Netflix
When we started to think about Ryan, it just felt like the perfect marriage of actor and role.
Ryan, you hadn’t really worked on an action thriller of this scale and style before.
Was there anything about making this movie that surprised you?
GOSLING:I wasn’t expecting any of it, really.
I always wanted to make an action film.
It took a while.
Took a long time to find the right one.
They’ve been doing this for the last decade.
Because I was out of my realm of experience, I just went along for the ride.
And it was a hell of a ride.
I think by action movie standards, this is pretty insane, right?
This has nine action set pieces.
JOE RUSSO:It’s pretty intense, yes.
It almost killed all of us.
ANTHONY RUSSO:But no one more so than Ryan, honestly.
The movie is designed around him, so it was on his shoulders.
It’s extremely physical.
It can be painful.
There is a Cirque du Soleil-level of choreography going on.
It requires incredible precision and a lot of training.
You have to imagine trying to memorize a fight for one action sequence, let alone nine.
Seven months of Ryan’s life were just moving through really intense, highly specialized choreography.
JOE RUSSO:Eating pizza.
JOE RUSSO:He was in incredible shape throughout this entire film.
And Anthony and I are Italian, so we love food.
Every day [we were like], “You want to get a fried chicken sandwich?
What about some pizza today?”
Meanwhile, Ryan’s got this dried chicken breast thing, and he’s drinking green juice.
ANTHONY RUSSO:There’s Ryan, just working so physically hard, day after day.
And we’d just sit there, watching him and eating while he works.
GOSLING:It was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in your tent.
It was just the best of the best.
Everything I ever wanted to try and didn’t even know existed.
JOE RUSSO:That was a skill he learned: dietary discipline.
ANTHONY RUSSO:I did feel awful about it, I have to say.
GOSLING:It didn’t stop you though.
So when you wrapped, did you finally get to eat what you wanted?
GOSLING:Yeah, I went pretty hard.
JOE RUSSO:You might have eaten an entire pizza.
GOSLING:I housed a pizza.
The film opens with an incredible action sequence featuring fireworks.
Joe and Anthony, how did you want to approach the visual style of those big sequences?
JOE RUSSO:There’s a tradition of lush, elegant production design in giant espionage movies.
We wanted to have fun with that.
It had to be more interesting than starting off as a dark noir movie.
It’s a colorful club, Ryan’s stylishly dressed, et cetera.
JOE RUSSO:The idea was just to create a relentless experience for the audience.
As Ryan mentioned, we all grew up loving action movies.
Anth and I are entertained by excess.
But that was the intent, to create a film where you forget to eat your popcorn.
GOSLING:I loved that [opening] sequence.
He has no romantic ideas about being James Bond.
He’d rather be home, watching this movie on Netflix like the rest of us.
He’s forced to do this, and his choices are die in prison or die as a spy.
This is a chance for him to live a little before he dies.
So, he gets to eat dinner at a restaurant and wear a fancy suit and watch the fireworks.
JOE RUSSO:He’s a very modern hero.
He’s obsessed with Sisyphus, the Greek myth of this character stuck in futility.
It’s what separates him from Bond and Bourne.
As Ryan said, it’s a proletariat hero.
Ryan, what do you remember about that day?
GOSLING:I wasn’t there on that day!
One of my many amazing doubles was there in that moment, I remember.
JOE RUSSO:Oh, that’s right.
And there were paparazzi there.
GOSLING:Yeah, there were paparazzi.
[Laughs] He did right by me in every way!
But I was like, “c’mon just don’t drop it like it’s hot.”
But when I was on the tram, it was near the end of filming.
I remember thinking,This sums up this experience.
This is exactly what this movie has felt like.
JOE RUSSO:We saved that for the end.
It was the very last thing he did just in case.
GOSLING:You should always be cautious of what they save for the end of filming.
We also have to talk about Chris Evans' villainous turn in this film.
Ryan, what was it like to face off against him and his mustache?
GOSLING:You said it.
He ran, mustache first, into this part.
I think everyone had a lot of fun just working with the Russos.
On the other hand, you’ve also got Ana de Armas as an ally.
What made her the right person for this role?
JOE RUSSO:She’s a badass.
She can really embody this character and inhabit it in a way that was extremely truthful.
She really worked hard and trained very hard.
You have to understand that making an action film is using a different muscle as an actor.
She just ran at it gleefully and did an exceptional job.
They don’t speak unless they have to.
So this was fun.
She’s so funny, and she’s amazing at the action as well.
Also, she saves my life so many times in this.
Thinking back to filming, what was your most memorable day on set?
JOE RUSSO:I wonder if we all think the same day.
ANTHONY RUSSO:What, the day Ryan ate pizza?
GOSLING:I think for me, it’s that day in Prague running on the train car.
When the Russos called me about this film, it was the middle of a pandemic.
Movie theaters were shutting down; film productions were shutting down.
It was this conversation about when and how movies would ever be a thing again.
Let’s do that."
Then I got my call time, and I was like, “Oh, they’re serious.”
JOE RUSSO:I think mine would be around the same day.
But do you remember when we had to put you on the hood of the car?
JOE RUSSO:We had this car on a swivel, and there was a green screen.
We’re just going to shake it a little bit."
I remember it was like a Monty Python skit.
You were hanging onto the front of a car, and we were like, “Shake the car!
No, no, you’ve got to look like it’s really moving at high speed!”
ANTHONY RUSSO:And then Joe got on.
GOSLING:Yeah, there’s an amazing take of Joe trying to show me how to do it.
He’s hanging on the car, and they [filmed] it secretly.
It’s just him screaming, “Oh my god!”
You should have just snuck a frame of that into the movie.
JOE RUSSO:That’s the after-credits sequence.
[Laughs]
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