Happy Birthday Ryan Gosling! Celebrate our Nation’s Boyfriend with a Look Back

Ryan Gosling in The Mickey Mouse Club

A Canada native, Ryan was always a performer, singing at weddings and talent competitions with his older sister and hoofing with a local dance troupe as a kid. When he was 12, Ryan was selected out of 17,000 kids to be on Disney’s new The Mickey Mouse Club. He sang, danced and performed sketches with fellow MMC cast like Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, and Britney Spears.

Ryan Gosling in Breaker High (1997)

After MMC, Ryan focused on acting and got cast as pint-sized playa of the high seas Sean Stanley Hanlon in the teen comedy Breaker High.

Ryan Gosling in Young Hercules (1998)

At age 17, Gosling got his first international break when he was cast as Hercules-in-training for the syndicated Fox Kids show Young Hercules. He moved to New Zealand to shoot the series. Because he was still a skinny kid, the makeup and costume departments had to use their bag of tricks to make him look more muscle-bound.

Ryan Gosling in Remember the Titans (2000)

Back in Hollywood, Ryan was cast as Alan Bosley, a member of the T.C. Williams High School Titans football team. Based on the true story of sports integration in 1970s Virginia, the movie, starring Denzel Washington, has since become a football film classic.

Ryan Gosling in The Believer (2001)

Ryan’s breakout dramatic role came playing Danny Balint, a self-loathing Jewish neo-Nazi, in the controversial independent film The Believer. Critics put the young actor on their radar, as did the industry, when he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.

Ryan Gosling in Murder by Numbers (2002)

Gosling played it cool as an incredibly smart and clever novice killer trying to outsmart Sandra Bullock’s homicide detective in Murder By Numbers. Bullock and Gosling had an off-screen romantic relationship that lasted for a year.

Ryan Gosling in The Notebook (2004)

While his previous roles proved his dramatic prowess, Gosling’s turn as Noah, the romantic, rural carpenter in love with Rachel McAdams’ upper-crust Allie, made him a big-screen sex symbol. The pair’s on-screen chemistry ignited the film as a sleeper hit and earned Gosling a spot on People’s 50 Hottest Bachelors.

Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson (2006)

Gosling followed up The Notebook with his most lauded role to date: a drug-addicted, inner-city junior high school teacher in Half Nelson. His work in the film led to both an Oscar nomination and a SAG nomination for best actor.

Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

A movie about a dude in a relationship with a sex doll sounds like a potential creepfest, but Gosling turned that scenario into a sweet, sad reflection on loss, isolation, and love, playing Lars in Lars and the Real Girl. He made us even like the doll!

Ryan Gosling’s band, Dead Man’s Bones

A musician from childhood, Gosling took a little break from film to form a band with Zach Shields. They released an album with songs focusing on their joint fascination with ghosts and monsters.

Davi Russon/The Weinstein Company

Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine (2010)

Gosling returned to drama with the indie darling Blue Valentine. He and Michelle Williams play a loving couple that get married and then suffer through the implosion of their relationship. Prior to shooting and during, Ryan and Michelle moved in together (platonically, they say) to build their married-couple rapport for the film. Method, much?

2011 BEN GLASS/Warner Bros

Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

Ryan let his inner sex pot come out to play again as Jacob Palmer, a hot, young bar stud who teaches newly separated Cal (Steve Carell) how to shake his shimmy again in the dating world.

Ryan Gosling in Drive (2011)

In confident, badass mode, Gosling plays a nameless driver for hire who will be your getaway man for the right price. When a job goes bad, he becomes the target of a contract killing, and let’s just say things get ugly for those on his tail.

Only God Forgives Official Facebook

Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives (2013)

After his turn in Drive, Gosling reteamed with director Nicolas Winding Refn on Only God Forgives where Gosling plays Julian, a man hellbent on revenge for his brother's death. Gosling's taken a break for most of 2014 but in 2015 we can expect an untitled Terrence Malick film and his directorial debut Lost River starring Drive co-star Christina Hendricks.