The role of Noah Calhoun in The Notebook elevated Ryan Gosling from “oh yeah, that guy who plays Young Hercules on Young Hercules” to “Hey, girl” status in a matter of minutes. But according to Nicholas Sparks, the ranking member of the Committee on Treacly Rom-Drams, Gosling got the role, at least in part, because nobody else really wanted it.
In a new interview with IMDb Asks (h/t Vulture) to promote his latest gut-busting comedy The Choice, Sparks explained that nary an actor wanted to play Noah because Noah was essentially a sentient piece of driftwood that existed solely for Rachel McAdams’ Allie Hamilton to climb upon whenever she felt like it. “It was really interesting because a lot of the actors said, ‘Well, what’s Noah’s arc?’ ” explained Sparks. “It’s a guy who falls in love and then he just kinda does nothing, and then waits for her to show up and then he’s there and he’s still in love and then at the end of the film, well, he’s still in love. Where’s the arc?” This is an uncharacteristically bold and strange statement coming from Sparks, who singlehandedly conceived of the character of Noah and is thus all but admitting that Noah was an altogether uninteresting human.
According to Sparks, Gosling was the only actor capable of making mill-worker-cum-expressive-visual-artist Noah seem like he had blood, not paint thinner, pumping through his veins: “Ryan Gosling came in and he really brought that story to life.” Gosling was likely also the only actor who knew better than to ask the famous novelist ostensibly writing his checks, “Where’s the arc?”
Devoted fans of The Notebook will recall Gosling’s own version of how he was cast in Sparks’ sweet tale of dementia and simultaneous death. In an interview with Company magazine back in 2012, Gosling shared that director Nick Cassavetes selected him for the honor of playing Noah because he looked vaguely insane. “[Cassavettes] called me to meet him at his house,” Gosling said. “When I got there, he was standing in his backyard, 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.’ ” In a later interview with VH1, Cassavetes elaborated: “When I told [New Line Cinema] I wanted to hire Ryan for the lead, they kind of looked at me like I was out of my mind.”
Whichever version of Official Gosling History you prefer—he was a young upstart who didn’t care about character arcs, or he was a young upstart who was not handsome or cool and seemed unhinged—it’s apparent that his Notebook casting was a bit of inspired, outside-the-box genius. It’s also apparent that everybody on The Notebook set was out of their minds.
