Why we should all be happy that Ryan Gosling is taking a break from acting

The hunk from The Notebook was risking both burnout and overexposure

Ryan Gosling
(Image credit: Facebook/The Place Beyond The Pines)

While on a press tour promoting his starring role in the new drama The Place Beyond The Pines, Ryan Gosling departed from the customary canned interviews and insipid soundbites to say something really surprising: He plans to take an indefinite hiatus from acting. "I've lost perspective on what I'm doing," Gosling told the Associated Press. "I think it's good for me to take a break and reassess why I'm doing it and how I'm doing it... I need a break from myself as much as I imagine the audience does."

It would be easy to argue that he was wrong on that last count. The Internet instantly went into total meltdown, with Gos-Fans losing their minds over the indeterminate stretch of Gosling-less months looming ahead. It got so bad that a 24-hour helpline was set up to console crushed fans by playing audio clips from Gosling's 2004 smash The Notebook. "It's not going to be easy. It's going to be really hard," the recording promises, a sentiment to which Gosling's legions of fans can undoubtedly relate.

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Daniel is a freelance writer, an Englishman abroad, and a pop culture junkie. He writes about film, TV, and lifestyle for outlets including MSN, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Evening Standard, and Yahoo.