Gosling draws on dark days for role - London Free Press                                 


School was murder for Ryan Gosling. Born in London, Gosling, 23, attended high school in Burlington. 

"I had a real hard time in high school. I just didn't fit in. I had to be pulled out of school because I couldn't read, write or do math," he says. 

"In elementary and junior high, teachers just kept passing me and I felt more and more hopeless." 

He recalls that other students called him dummy and he was moved to a special education class for slow learners. 

"Everyone called me stupid and I believed them, so it was a real downward spiral for me." 

Fortunately for Gosling, his parents believed in him and started to home-school him. 

"My father covered the walls of our basement in paper and we turned every lesson into an art project because it was through art that I communicated." 

Gosling is recalling his own troubled youth because he used it for his character in the dark drama, The United States of Leland. 

He plays Leland Fitzgerald, a teenager who kills a disabled youngster. For his crime, Leland is sent to a juvenile detention centre where a prison teacher, played by Don Cheadle, tries to discover why he committed the crime. 

Leland's father played by the film's producer, Kevin Spacey, was never there for his son, which is part of the youth's problem. 

"I understand Leland's feelings of being an outsider, but I couldn't relate to the emptiness he feels at being emotionally abandoned by his father." 

Gosling says, like Leland, he is "not much of a ladies' man." 

This revelation immediately has him fielding questions about his rumoured relationship with Sandra Bullock after they starred together in Murder by Numbers. 

"I guess those rumours can be expected. I can just say that Sandra is really cool and add that I don't have a girlfriend. 

"That's about as much of my private life as I am willing to divulge." 

Matthew Hoge, who wrote and directed The United States of Leland, originally refused to meet with Gosling for the role. 

"He had seen me (playing a neo-Nazi youth) in The Believer and couldn't envision me as Leland." 

Gosling's agent persisted and Gosling got his meeting and the role.