Damien Chazelle says Ryan Gosling is one of few actors of his generation who has mastered art of film acting

Hey girl, Damien Chazelle loves Ryan Gosling just as much as you do.

While appearing at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival for a conversation focused on his directing career, Oscar winner Chazelle explained his love of working with Gosling (they collaborated on both 2016's La La Land and 2018's First Man).

"In a way, it's the same thing you can say about a lot of the greatest film actors," Chazelle said of his admiration for Gosling and the actor's face. "Something that feels like it's fundamental to film acting as opposed to other kind of acting is the art of conveying a ton by seeming to do very little."

In perhaps a nod to his next film, Babylon, about Hollywood in the 1920s, Chazelle compared Gosling to the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.

Daniel McFadden/Universal Pictures Ryan Gosling showing off his acting skill in Damien Chazelle's 'The First Man'

"It goes back to the earliest silent film actors, if you think of Chaplin or Valentino," he said. "There's a few people, not many, who, if you just park the camera on their face they can tell a whole story with only the slightest fluctuation of the brow or their eyebrows or their lips or even with no movement at all. Just holding a certain kind of expression."

That economy of movement and ability to convey so much with just his face is what sets Gosling apart for Chazelle. "Ryan is one of the handful of people today who have really mastered that art form," he concluded. "Acting as an art form has existed for millennia, it's one of the oldest art forms we have. But the art of film acting is still much younger, and something that is really specific to film acting is being able to convey a whole saga in a close-up."

Gosling will next be seen in the day-glo fever drama that appears to be Greta Gerwig's Barbie, while Chazelle's next release (alas, sans Gosling) is this Christmas' Babylon.

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