The Oddball

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And while he could get a lot more attention for his films with a few choice details about his private life, Gosling answers questions about his romance with his Notebook co-star, Rachel McAdams, by shaking his head as if at a naughty child. Sex appeal, says Gosling, who's gotten doughy and scruffy to play a grief-stricken young father in Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Alice Sebold novel The Lovely Bones, is the problem with male actors today. "The only really good performances out right now are female performances," he says, citing Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There and Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose. "Guys are really dropping the ball. I think it's because the women aren't interested in being sexy anymore and the men are. All these guys have objectified themselves and sexualized themselves into being matinee idols." In an era when the holy grail of film is mass appeal, he subscribes to the belief that "you can't make a movie for everybody. You can't go into it trying to alienate people, but you have to assume that you're going to." Of course, this unconventionality may all be youthful hubris; Johnny Depp was a contrarian once too, and then he became the pirate king of sequel land.

There's a scene in Lars and the Real Girl in which Lars' brother (Paul Schneider) confronts Lars about his delusion, telling him that Bianca is not a real person but a big plastic thing. Lars can't or won't hear him. For the audience his disbelief is a relief--why ruin a love so pure so soon? Selfishly, we hope Gosling keeps tuning Hollywood out a little longer too.