Ryan Gosling presented his film, Lost River, at SXSW this weekend. First, a conversation moderated by his friend, the director Guillermo del Toro. The two are apparently quite close. Throughout the discussion, even though the film was not well received in Cannes, del Toro repeated several times how much he admired Gosling’s work, going out of his way to make sure people knew that he thinks the film is good. It turns out that he’d been advising Gosling on Lost River for a while. The two talked about how Gosling went over to del Toro’s while he was still developing the story to show him his ideas and del Toro was so supportive, he even told Gosling that if he didn’t want to direct it, he would happily step in for him.
"I don't think you meant that," he said to del Toro, "but something about you saying that was the coolest thing you could say. I felt like the wizard gave me the sword and put me on this quest. Thank you so much for doing this and encouraging me to make the film."
As for the story, the inspiration for it evidently came from Gosling’s mother who raised him on her own:
"I'm not going to cry," Gosling said, when del Toro asked about the role his single mother played in the inspiration behind "Lost River" (it centers on a single mother of two, played by Gosling's "Drive" co-star Christina Hendricks). "My mom is very beautiful and was a single mom," Gosling said. "When you're a kid and you have a single mom, all men feel like wolves. Guys would whistle at her — it was very predatory and threatening. As a kid I felt helpless, so you start to imagine all these [scenarios] where you can do something. You see the world through the filter of your imagination."
The other inspiration was Detroit.
“I think for a lot of Canadian kids, Detroit was like the pinup girl in your locker, the locker in your heart. I was just crushin’ on the States pretty hard. And Detroit, because it was closest, but also because of what it was, sort of embodied America to me: Motown, the Model T, techno, Eminem, the refrigerator, really that whole iconic America.”
Ryan Gosling and Eminem… can you imagine?
I suppose then, given how tight he is with del Toro, del Toro would be the only one who could get away with bringing up Eva Mendes and the baby. When discussing the Lost River cast, Ryan told del Toro that:
“I really like working with my friends; I love all of these people,” at which point del Toro added, “You have a baby with one of them!”
And he confirmed:
“I do. I have lots of complicated, amazing women in my life, and that’s increasing.”
Click here to read more about the Guillermo-Gosling conversation.
The next day, at the screening, Gosling was joined on stage by several members of his Lost River cast including Eva Mendes, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, and Iain De Caestecker. During the Q&A, after De Caestecker told the audience that:
“I can speak for myself, and I think everyone else, that we were all fans of Ryan’s work before we started…”
Eva then cut in:
“I’m a bigger fan...probably his biggest fan.”
(Start at 9:30 for that part)
Eva just joined Instagram. The only photos she’s posted?
Head wraps!
