10 Real Reasons These Actors Were Cast In Major Movie Roles

2. Ryan Gosling "Wasn't Handsome Or Cool" - The Notebook

If you had to guess why an up-and-coming Ryan Gosling was cast as the dreamy lead of 2004's hit romantic drama The Notebook, you'd be forgiven for assuming it was his striking good looks.

But bizarrely, director Nick Cassavetes cast Gosling in the part for precisely the opposite reason, that he felt Gosling wasn't the handsome ideal you'd expect to see in a movie like this. In Gosling's own words:

"[Cassavettes] called me to meet him at his house. When I got there, he was standing in his backyard, and he looked at me and said, 'I want you to play this role because you're not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You're not handsome, you're not cool, you're just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts.'"

Cassavetes himself later added that New Line Cinema thought he was "out of [his] mind" when he stated his intent to cast Gosling, a decision which evidently paid off dividends for all involved.

The Notebook remains a weepie classic to this very day, and it helped Gosling gain a much-needed foothold in Hollywood.