15 Facts You Didn’t Know About The Notebook

The Notebook will forever be one of best romance movies ever made. The story of Noah and Allie is everything #relationshipgoals stands for and it’s literally impossible to watch the movie without an ugly cry face. In celebration of Valentines Day just a couple weeks away, check out these eye popping facts about this film you didn’t know!

1. Before Ryan Gosling was cast to play Noah, Justin Timberlake and Tom Cruise were considered for the role.

2. Speaking of casting, Rachel McAdams didn’t get the script until the night before the audition while she was at another movie premiere.

3. It ended up being ok, because she beat out Jessica Biel, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears and Ashely Judd for the role of Allie.

4. Ryan wore brown contacts lenses to match James Garner‘s eyes who played the older version of him. FYI: Ryan has blue eyes IRL.

5. To prepare for his role, Ryan lived in Charleston South Carolina for 2 moths building furniture and rowing the Ashley River everyday.

6. Ryan’s carpentry made it into the movie in the form of the dinner table he sits at with Allie.

7. You can see a microphone clipped to the back of Ryan’s shirt when he’s hanging off the ferris wheel.

8. Even though they dated in real life, Ryan did not initially like Rachel and tried to have her replaced.

9. One of the scenes cut from the movie was the back story of the actual notebook.

10. Before filming began, Rachel spent time in South Carolina, taking etiquette and ballet classes as well as hiring a dialect coach to master a believable southern accent.

11. The scene when Noah crashes into the gate of Allie’s summer manor was a mistake, but was kept because the shot was so good.

12. The first scenes to be filmed were the seven years post-Noah and Allie meeting. Over the course of winter break, Ryan had to lose 20 pounds and his beard to become a younger version of Noah.

13. The older version of Allie was played by the director’s mother, Gena Rowlands.

14. James Marsden who played Allie’s fiance, Lon, didn’t think The Notebook would stand the test of time, confessing, “I thought The Notebook was going to be a schmaltzy Movie of the Week–type thing.”

15. Ryan improvised the line at the end of the movie confronting Allie, “Stop thinking about what I want, what he wants, what your parents want. What do you want?”