While accepting the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, on January 13, Ryan Gosling gave a sweet shoutout to the two best women in his life. Calling his wife Eva Mendes the girl of his dreams, and his mother the real winner of his achievement, Gosling made his warm speech.
But while accepting the award with a heartfelt message, Ryan Gosling recalled a core childhood memory from third grade that had him realize his love for cinema. Recalling one of his rebellious habits that forced his mother to withdraw him from public school and homeschool him for a year, Gosling shared how he got closer to cinema in that very process.
Ryan Gosling Earned the Kirk Douglas Award
The Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling, who is currently making rounds on the internet for his role as Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, featuring Margot Robbie, recently won the Kirk Douglas Award. On January 13, at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Gosling bagged the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film.
While accepting the award, Ryan Gosling made a heartfelt speech, giving a shoutout to his wife Eva Mendes, and dedicating his success to his mother, Donna Gosling. During the speech, the actor noted how his career has changed his life, which eventually led him to meet his wife, “the girl of his dream”. Thereafter, the actor proceeded to thank Mendes for her support.
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“Most importantly, I got to meet the girl of my dreams, Eva Mendes, and have two dream children… I dreamed of one-day making movies, and now movies have made my life a dream. So the way I see it, there’s no way I’ve contributed half as much to cinema as cinema has contributed to me,”
Thanking the committee for offering him the honor, Ryan Gosling proceeded to discuss how he initially developed a love for cinema, way before he ventured into the industry. Gosling mentioned how his mother was “deeply instrumental” in helping him achieve success, and helped him realize his love for cinema.
Ryan Gosling Recalled a Rebellious Childhood Habit
Speaking about the early years when he started developing a strong interest in the art of cinema and filmmaking, Ryan Gosling recalled a core childhood memory and a rebellious habit of his. Disclosing how he had the stubborn habit of swearing during his third grade, Gosling discussed the method implemented by his mother that not only straightened his habit but also drove him towards cinema.
“When I was in the third grade, I had a swearing problem. I didn’t think it was a problem, but my teachers did. My mother said it was almost impossible to get me to stop, but I remember the night she figured it out. We were at the dinner table and she said, ‘If you swear one more time, you can’t watch any movies tonight.’ And I thought that was extreme, so I used some extreme language back. She said, ‘OK, now you can’t watch movies for a week.’”
Furious at his mother’s decision, Ryan Gosling recalled retaliating with “a quick flurry of my favorites and then I dropped an F-bomb, just for good measure,”. That’s when his mother stepped up and decided, “well, now you can’t watch movies for a month.” According to Gosling, “it wasn’t until that exact moment that I realized just how much movies meant to me.”
“She found my weak spot. She knew it, and soon after that she took me out of school and homeschooled me for a year… So part of her curriculum was weekly visits to the library to check out books I had no intention of reading. She had a solution for that too. The library had a collection of films and she made a deal with me that for every book I read, I could rent a movie.”
Revealing how his mother found a way to encourage him to watch more movies while also making sure he improved his reading skills, Ryan Gosling implied that his mother was the woman behind his success. Eventually, he addressed how he made the whole speech “without swearing. Not even once. So I guess my mom was the big winner tonight”. After bagging the Kirk Douglas Award, Gosling is now looking forward to his Oscar win for Barbie.
