LOS ANGELES — Just try to keep a straight face around Ryan Gosling.
The actor is one-half of an unexpectedly winning, if hapless, detective team in The Nice Guys, a new 1970-set action comedy with Russell Crowe from director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang).
In one scene, Gosling's easily distracted P.I. drunkenly dives into a pool filled with half-naked mermaids during a raucous party (which he's supposed to be investigating).
But do you see him shiver once? You do not. “I don’t know why they call it Hotlanta. When we shot (in January), it was below zero. I think the best acting we did was just acting warm,” cracks Gosling. “Did you question it?” He pauses for effect. “They don’t give out awards for that.”
Critics have fallen for the chemistry between Crowe as a straight man/thug-for-hire to Gosling's neurotic, drunken detective as they chase down a young woman connected to the death of a porn star. The film "proves a dynamic duo can still be just as effective in modern cinema as a superhero ensemble cast" wrote USA TODAY's Brian Truitt, while Variety noted the buddy flick "offers the scruffy pleasure of seeing two great actors dial down their gravitas with style."
On set, Gosling's riffs with Crowe's character Jackson Healy revealed him to be "a lot more of a schmuck than anyone intended. I heard that word more than any other word on set. They seemed to stop saying 'Cut!' at a certain point. They just would go, 'What a schmuck!’"
Off-camera, it’s no joke that Gosling has written the celebrity handbook on how to live a private life in paparazzi-ridden Los Angeles. In fact, it was only in his partner Eva Mendes’ last month of her pregnancy with their second daughter, born April 29, that anyone even knew she was pregnant.
They do their best to maintain a low profile, he says. "For us, especially with kids, unfortunately privacy isn't something that they're going to have a lot of," says Gosling. "So as much as you can give it to them you feel like that's what you want to do, you know? It's the nature of being a parent. You're protective."
The actor's next year is packed. After a mixed reception to his directorial debut, Lost River, he’s teed up two more projects to helm. “It’s whatever one is ready first,” he says.
This July, Gosling will begin filming the much-anticipated Blade Runner sequel (due October 2017) with Harrison Ford. "I really can’t believe it," he says, of being part of one of his favorite films. "I feel really lucky. But it’s a tall order and obviously it’s a huge responsibility. I can promise the fans that everyone working on the film is aware of that, and trying to honor the original.”
And Gosling will end the year re-teaming with Emma Stone on La La Land (out Dec. 2), a love story with Fred Astaire- and Ginger Rogers-influenced song and dance numbers. “I thought, the dancing part at least I have in my pocket, I can do that," says Gosling, who plays a jazz musician to Stone's aspiring actress. "And then I got there and it was kind of like that movie The Cutting Edge. It's like the hockey player trying to learn how to figure skate. I kept hearing 'Toe pick!' every five minutes.”
