It’s no secret that Ryan Gosling is one of his generation’s best actors. With heart-wrenching performances in movies like Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines, and La La Land (for which he got his second Academy Award nomination), he’s proved his versatility time and time again. Also, he sings in every one of those and shows off impressive vocal skills. In Barbie, he sings the impossibly catchy tune “I’m Just Ken,” which he will perform at the upcoming Oscars. So, is he a trained singer? The answer isn’t that simple.
Recommended VideosGosling has actually always been a musician, and he’s even in a band called Dead Man’s Bones with bandmate Zach Shields, where he performs under the alias “Baby Goose.” Adorable! While trained may not be the word, Gosling has been singing and performing most of his life.
Let’s take a look at his history with the aural arts. Believe it or not, Gosling’s always been a good dancer and singer. There’s even footage of him singing with his sister at a very young age at a childhood talent show. In the video below, he completely nails a very white but very good version of “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
He’s in his best ’90s outfit and he then teams up with sister Mandi to perform the all time classic “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by the C+C Music Factory. It’s pretty clear that this kid had some outsized talent back then.
The show must’ve caught someone’s attention because when Gosling was 12 years old he got hired as a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club. His particular cast, by the way, was absolutely stacked with future superstars.
Some names you might recognize include Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, JC Chasez, and the incredible singer Christina Aguilera. Quite the cadre of future famous stars there. Gosling was 12 when he joined the show, and it gave him a chance to really take his singing and dancing to the next level. In a sense, you could say he was “trained” to sing while on the show.
Around this time his acting career also started to heat up, so instead of going the boy band route like his peers he scored roles in shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Breaker High. Here’s a young Timberlake, Chasez and Gosling tearing up a soulful version of the song “Cry for Me.”
In another universe, Gosling was a member of NSYNC for sure.
Now we’re getting into the early 2000s, when Gosling was in his early 20s. While his acting career continued to flourish with breakout roles in The Notebook and an Oscar nominated turn in Half Nelson, he never really stopped performing. Check out a slightly older Gosling playing acoustic guitar and singing with a YouTube user named Rich Clark.
It’s not known exactly when or where this performance came from, but just watch Gosling tear it up. He’s obviously in his element here, demonstrating that he not only has the voice of an angel but the fingers of one too. The sound isn’t great but the soul is obviously there.
From this point onward, Gosling’s singing voice started popping up in movies. For example, he sings the classic Nat King Cole standard L.O.V.E. to a sex doll he’s fallen for in Lars and the Real Girl. It’s an unorthodox performance, but listen to that vocal vibrato and use of his falsetto voice.
Next let’s check out a clip from his band Dead Man’s Bones. This is around the end of the 2000s. The band played its last gig in 2012 and hasn’t really been active since then, but there was no word they broke up or anything so there’s always a chance we could get new music from the outfit at some point.
In the next adorable clip, Gosling teams up with the Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir for a rendition of the original composition “In the Room Where You Sleep.” Fun fact about Dead Man’s Bones, by the way: the band’s genre is gothic rock and darkwave. What’s darkwave? It’s post new wave and post post-punk with a more gloomy edge to it.
In 2010, Gosling starred in the heartbreaking movie Blue Valentine with Michelle Williams. Seriously, if you want to be depressed for a fortnight definitely go watch it, but if you value happiness stay far, far away. It is inarguably a beautiful film, though.
With a ukulele in tow, he belts out a restrained version of “You Always Hurt the One You Love” and even puts on a fun Elvis voice while he sings it. Even though he tells Williams he “can’t really sing” he really puts on an endearing, believable performance of a man falling in love. Williams then says what we’re all thinking, that he’s actually good!
This brings us to another heartbreaker in the Gosling catalog: The Place Beyond the Pines from 2012. Gosling plays a young guy with a motorcycle who gets caught up in a life of crime, but he also has a tender side.
In this scene, he even sings in Spanish. While it’s just a snippet, it’s another perfect example of Gosling’s on-screen charm and his seemingly effortless talent.
Finally, we have what was probably his magnum opus – La La Land. Despite whitewashing the genre of Jazz, the movie lets Gosling show the full range of his musical ability. It also netted six Oscar nominations, not too shabby!
After the whole Oscar debacle where La La Land didn’t actually win best picture, Gosling appeared on Saturday Night Live to, what else, sing about the whole thing. It’s a fun jazzy monologue full of humor and dancing. A true joy.
Gosling followed this up with another music-based movie, 2017’s Song to Song. He plays a musician who falls head over heels for Rooney Mara’s character, a guitarist. This leads to a difficult love triangle with a producer, played by Michael Fassbender.
One of the cool things about this movie is that it features real-life musicians like Iggy Pop and the Canadian duo Tegan and Sara.
We’ve come full circle! Gosling’s excellent turn as Ken in Barbie features his most popular song to date: “I’m just Ken.” It’s an instant classic.
So, is he a trained singer? If you count the Mickey Mouse Club, then yes. If you don’t, then kind of!
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