Gosling’s Disney years

Ryan Gosling doesn’t recommend child stardom, said Martyn Palmer in The Sunday Times (U.K.). At age 12, the Canadian actor moved to Florida with his mother after winning a part on TV’s Mickey Mouse Club. His father, a paper mill worker, refused to leave Ontario. “My father didn’t want me to do it,’’ he says. “They ended up getting divorced because of it.” Gosling thinks the show gave him and his young co-stars—including Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera—a distorted view of life. “You’re 12, but nobody [on set] looks at you like you’re 12. You are there to do a job, you have a schedule. You have grown men calling you ‘sir’ and running around to get you sandwiches or anything you ask for.” When he wasn’t working, Gosling hung out with the film crew. “You’re shooting the breeze, talking about their marriage or whatever, talking as if you’re equals, but you’re not equals.” That taste of power went to a few Mouseketeers’ heads. “Some of the kids got caught up in it, and you could see them become tyrants, because they are paying for a house their parents live in. It’s no good for anybody.”

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