Ryan Gosling Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
La La Land’s choreography helped Ryan Gosling score an Oscar nomination in 2017 — but there’s one move that still has him wishing for a do-over to this day.
While speaking to WSJ. Magazine in an interview published on Thursday, May 2, Gosling, 43, revealed that the 2016 film’s evening street dance scene, featuring costar Emma Stone, now “haunts” him.
“There’s a moment that haunts me where we’re dancing, Emma and I,” he told the outlet. “We were supposed to have our hands up and I thought it’d be cool to put my hand like that,” Gosling said, turning his hand flat in the air rather than straight up.
Gosling noted that “even though everyone told me it wasn’t cool” he was sure laying his hand flat would look better than gesturing it up like Stone, 35. “And now when I look at it and I have to see it all the time, you know what would’ve been cooler than this?” he asked, with a flat hand, “that,” he said, flicking his wrist back up in the air.
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The iconic scene, which depicts Gosling’s character, Sebastian, and Stone’s Mia beginning to fall for one another ahead of the film’s epic tear-jerking romance, was executed so famously that it was used in the movie’s promotional posters.
“It just killed the energy that way,” Gosling, who has been with partner Eva Mendes for more than a decade, continued. “It was all leading to what? A lazy … I call it La La Hand.
The former Mickey Mouse Club star added that he’d assumed his background in dance, which spans ballet training as a child and the occasional adult dance class, would help him film the extensive dance sequences required in La La Land.
“And then of course, Hamburger-Hands Gosling over here… it didn’t help me at all in the end,” he concluded, laughing.
Hopefully, there’s nothing Gosling wants to redo in his upcoming film The Fall Guy, which costars Emily Blunt. The film, which hits theaters on Friday, May 3, follows a stuntman (Gosling), who is working on his ex-girlfriend’s directorial debut when the film’s lead actor goes missing under mysterious circumstances.
While he didn’t dance, Gosling was able to put his musical talent on display while promoting the movie on Saturday Night Live last month.
During his opening monologue on the Saturday, April 13 episode, Gosling performed his own version of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well,” where he paid tribute — and said goodbye — to his Barbie character, Ken, after months of promotions for the summer 2023 blockbuster.
“I shredded Venice Beach, it’s true,” Gosling hilariously recited. “My clothes were tight but something about that spandex felt so right. If I said that I was doing fine, you know I’d be lying ‘cause I was just Ken and now I’m just Ryan.”
