Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor and musician. He first came to public attention as a child star on the Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club (1993–95) and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs including Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1995), Goosebumps (1996), Breaker High (1997–98) and Young Hercules (1998–99). His first serious role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001), and he then built a reputation for playing misfits in independent films such as Murder by Numbers (2002), The Slaughter Rule (2002), The United States of Leland (2003) and Stay (2005).
Gosling came to the attention of a wider audience in 2004 with a leading role in the romantic drama The Notebook, for which he won four Teen Choice Awards and an MTV Movie Award. His performance as a drug-addicted teacher in Half Nelson (2006) was nominated for an Academy Award and his performance as a socially inept loner in Lars and the Real Girl (2007) was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. In 2007, he starred in the courtroom thriller Fracture.
After a three-year acting hiatus, Gosling starred in both Blue Valentine and All Good Things in 2010. The former performance as a frazzled husband earned him a second Golden Globe nomination. 2011 proved to be a landmark year for the actor as he appeared in three mainstream films – the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, the thriller Drive and the political drama The Ides of March – and received two Golden Globe nominations. He is due to appear in five upcoming films: the period crime feature Gangster Squad, the generational drama The Place Beyond the Pines, the revenge drama Only God Forgives, Terrence Malick's Lawless, and a remake of the sci-fi film Logan's Run.
Gosling's band, Dead Man's Bones, released their self-titled debut album and toured North America in 2009. He is a co-owner of Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. He is a supporter of both PETA and the Enough Project and has travelled to Chad, Uganda and eastern Congo to raise awareness about conflicts in the region. He has had relationships with actresses Sandra Bullock (2002–03) and Rachel McAdams (2005–08) and lives in New York City.
