Who Told Ryan Gosling He Was ‘Not Handsome’ and ‘Not Cool’?

When he was first starting out, someone told a then-unknown Ryan Gosling that he wasn’t handsome and not cool. While millions of women would beg to differ on that opinion today, this person would also give Ryan the break of a lifetime. Who could have said such a thing? None other than Ryan’s The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes, Us Weekly reports.

“The director, Nick Cassavetes, called me to meet him at his house,” Ryan told the British magazine Company. “When I got there, he was standing in his back yard, and he looked at me and said, ‘I want you to play this role because you’re not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You’re not handsome, you’re not cool, you’re just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts.”

Guess that really worked for Ryan, since he went to star in the beloved romantic movie alongside fellow Canadian Rachel McAdams, whom he had a relationship with and was briefly engaged to.

And while he sports the leading man status today, Ryan admits to the magazine that he was a “lonely child. I didn’t do well at school and TV was my only friend.”

It’s hard to believe that there was a time where Ry-Gos WASN’T the man! So just how did he break out of his lonely childhood and when did he decide to pursue acting?

“Then, one day, I saw Raquel Welch on The Muppet Show. She was dancing with this big furry spider and I immediately fell in love. She was the first crush I ever had, and I thought, ‘How do I get to meet this woman?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, she’s on TV, so to meet her I have to get on TV myself.’ “

And this is why we love you Ry-Gos!

What role of Ryan Gosling’s is your favorite? Which one is he the most handsome and most cool in?