Ryan Gosling Was "Screaming and Yelling" at This Co-Star, Director Said
They looked wildly in love on-screen, but when the camera stopped rolling, it was a different story.
Ryan Gosling is a Hollywood A-lister known for his roles in a number of blockbusters, including Crazy, Stupid, Love, Blade Runner 2049, and the Oscar-winning musical La La Land. But Gosling's most beloved role may still be Noah Calhoun in the 2004 romantic tearjerker The Notebook. Based on Nicholas Sparks' 1996 novel of the same name, this 1940s-set drama paired Gosling with Rachel McAdams as his star-crossed love Allie Hamilton. The pair had electric chemistry onscreen, but apparently, all was not as it seemed. Read on to hear what director Nick Cassavetes had to say about the actors' tumultuous relationship on set.
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Ryan Gosling wanted Rachel McAdams fired from The Notebook.
In The Notebook, Noah and Allie have a love-hate relationship characterized by breakups and makeups before they get to their (sort of) happy ending. As it turns out, art was imitating life, because Gosling and McAdams apparently hated each other during filming.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Cassavetes told VH1 in a 2014 interview that there was definitely tension on set. "Maybe I'm not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not," Cassavetes said, adding that Gosling pulled him aside—while doing a scene with McAdams and 150 others—and asked for another actor to be brought in to read with him off-camera.
Cassavetes was shocked. Gosling apparently added, "I can't. I can't do it with her. I'm just not getting anything from this."
Cassavetes had to conduct a "therapy session" with the co-stars.
When he realized the severity of the issue, Cassavetes, a producer, Gosling, and McAdams went into a private room. There, Cassavetes said, "They started screaming and yelling at each other."
Thankfully, after "they had it out," things got better, Cassavetes continued, adding that Gosling respected McAdams' desire to "stand up for her character."
The actors' professional relationship improved after the two were able to voice their feelings, but it was not entirely "smooth sailing" for the remainder of filming, according to the director.
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The plot thickened when Gosling and McAdams began dating in real life.
In an interesting turn of events, Gosling and McAdams ended up pursuing a romantic relationship off-screen. After they wrapped filming, the pair went on to date on-and-off for two years, splitting officially in 2007. When they took the stage at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards' after their win for Best Kiss, the two reenacted it on stage, and the palpable chemistry thrilled fans.
Unlike their characters in The Notebook, Gosling and McAdams couldn't make it work. When asked about the breakup in a 2007 interview with GQ, Gosling said, "The only thing I remember is we both went down swingin' and we called it a draw."
Gosling also took some heat after the breakup, as fans were devastated to hear they couldn't make it work. One woman even came up and asked how he could let someone like McAdams get away, Gosling recalled. "I feel like I want to give people hugs, they seem so sad. Rachel and I should be the ones getting hugs! Instead, we're consoling everybody else," he told GQ.
Gosling later called McAdams "one of the great loves of my life."
Gosling may not have been thrilled at the time The Notebook was being filmed, but now it seems that his perspective has changed. "I mean, God bless The Notebook. It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life," he told GQ after the breakup.
Even though they couldn't work it out, both McAdams and Gosling found love elsewhere. Since 2011, Gosling has been in a relationship with another big star, Eva Mendes, with whom he has two daughters, Esmerelda, born in 2014, and Amada, born in 2016. McAdams has been dating American screenwriter Jamie Linden since 2016, and she welcomed a son in 2018. In Aug. 2020, it was announced that the pair were expecting a second child, but additional details have not been released since then.
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