Ryan Gosling spoke about how his experiences growing up in a single parent household influenced his directorial debut, Lost River, during a Q&A session Friday on the opening day of this year’s SXSW festival.
Gosling spoke with Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro in Austin about how the film was partly autobiographical.
The film features Billy, a single mother (played by Christina Hendricks) who falls behind on her mortgage payments and ends up taking a job in a bank manager’s seedy cabaret club.
“I think when you’re a kid and you have a single mom, in a way, all men feel like wolves,” he said, during the engaging back and forth with del Toro.
“I remember walking with my mother and guys would whistle at her or cars would start circling. It’s very predatory and very threatening especially when you’re a little kid.”
Gosling also spoke about growing up in Canada and fantasizing about Detroit, saying: “when you’re Canadian kid, America’s like a bit of a pinup girl you put in your locker. I had all these fantasies about it and Detroit embodied those”. But as parts of the midwest city began to fall into decline, Gosling found the inspiration for Lost River, which was described as a “neon-punk fairytale” by Del Toro and a “dark Goonies” by cinematographer Benoît Debie.
The film premiered at Cannes in May before being panned by critics and was cut to a limited theatrical release.
The pair discussed the idea of “finding the magic in the ruins of society”, and Gosling talked about not wanting to get bogged down in the political arguments that often dominate the discussion about Detroit’s decline.
Del Toro also made a series of jokey digs at Gosling, saying he was taking part in the Q&A in order to “show you the film-maker, not just the meme who says ‘Hey Girl’”.
They also discussed Del Toro’s property Bleek House, which the Mexican director called a “strange man cave of monsters and books”, while Gosling described a place where “everything comes to life and follows you”.
But despite the jovial atmosphere the film has been a failure for Gosling with Peter Bradshaw describing it as “colossally indulgent, shapeless, often fantastically and unthinkingly offensive and at all times insufferably conceited” and other critics found fault with the project despite the stellar cast that also includes Matt Smith, Eva Mendes, Saoirse Ronan and Ben Mendelsohn.
Lost River screens Saturday night at SXSW (Topfer, 9.30pm).
