Actor Ryan Gosling poses at the gala presentation for the film "The Place Beyond The Pines" at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival September 7, 2012.MIKE CASSESE/Reuters
Ryan Gosling says working with filmmaker Derek Cianfrance has been a life-altering experience.
The Oscar-nominated heart-throb from London, Ont., paired up with Brooklyn-based Cianfrance for a second time on The Place Beyond the Pines, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday.
Their first collaboration was the lauded 2010 relationship drama Blue Valentine, which earned co-star Michelle Williams an Oscar nomination.
In an interview Saturday, Gosling gushed about Cianfrance's ability to create a sense of realism on set, noting he lets his actors spend a lot of time bonding in their surroundings.
"These films have changed my life and they have changed me as an actor," he said, wearing black jeans and a black form-fitting T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Halloween Haunt."
Gosling's grown even more fond of Cianfrance's process now that he's about to embark on his own directorial debut with How to Catch A Monster.
"As I go to approach making my own film, I'm even more in awe of how he does it, because the filmmaking is invisible and yet it's such a cinematic film. You don't see the effort. It feels effortless and yet it's completely the opposite," said Gosling.
"And the performances, everybody's great in the film: people who haven't acted, people who have acted, everyone does their best work in his films. I was thinking about how I would use his process with actors myself but then I realized last night that I've actually never seen him work with the other actors," continued Gosling, who also wrote How to Catch A Monster and has cast Christina Hendricks, his co-star from last year's Drive.
"I've made two movies with him and it's always private and I only know my experience of working with Derek."
Cianfrance directed and co-wrote The Place Beyond the Pines, an epic crime thriller that stars Gosling as a motorcycle stuntman who starts robbing banks to provide for his infant son and his former flame, played by Eva Mendes.
The noir-ish drama takes a sharp turn when Gosling's character encounters a rookie cop, played by Bradley Cooper.
Other co-stars include Rose Byrne and Ray Liotta.