Ryan Thomas Gosling was born in London, Ontario, Canada, to Donna (Wilson),a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman. He is the second of two children, with an older sister, Mandi. His ancestry is a mix of French-Canadian, English, Scottish, and Irish.
Gosling grew up in Cornwall, Ontario, where he was home-schooled by his mother. He later attended Gladstone Public School and Cornwall Collegiate & Vocational School, excelling in Drama and Fine Arts. The family then relocated to Burlington, Ontario, where Ryan attended Lester B. Pearson High School.
As a child, Gosling performed as a singer at talent contests with his sister Mandi. He attended an open audition in Montreal for the TV series "The Mickey Mouse Club" in January 1993 and beat out 17,000 other aspiring actors for a spot on the show. While appearing on "MMC" for two years, he lived with co-star Justin Timberlake's family.
After "MMC," Gosling segued into an acting career, appearing on TV series such as Young Hercules and Breaker High, as well as films like The Slaughter Rule, Murder by Numbers, and Remember the Titans. He first attracted serious critical attention with his performance as the Jewish neo-Nazi in the controversial film The Believer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival.
Gosling was cast in the part by writer-director Henry Bean, who believed that Gosling's strict upbringing gave him the insight to understand the character Danny, whose obsessiveness with the Judaism he was born into turns to hatred. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Male Lead in 2002 for the role and won the Golden Aries award from the Russian Guild of Film Critics.
After appearing in the sleeper hit The Notebook in 2004, Gosling won the dubious honor of being named one of the 50 Hottest Bachelors by People Magazine. More significantly, he was named the Male Star of Tomorrow at the 2004 Show West convention of movie exhibitors.
Gosling reached a summit of his profession with his performance in Half Nelson, which garnered him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. In a short time, he has established himself as one of the finest actors of his generation.
Throughout the subsequent decade, he has become all three of an internet fixation, a box office star, and a critical darling, having headlined films such as Blue Valentine, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Drive, The Ides of March, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Nice Guys, and La La Land. In 2017, he starred in the long-awaited science fiction sequel Blade Runner 2049, with Harrison Ford.
Ryan Gosling has two children with his partner, actress Eva Mendes.
