Ryan Gosling Is a Lot More Than Just Ken in SXSW Headliner The Fall Guy

Producer-director David Leitch, Ryan Gosling, and producer Kelly McCormick at Tuesday night's The Fall Guy world premiere (photo by Gary Miller)

“Hi, I’m Ryan Gosling, and I did almost none of my own stunts.”

Even after his Marilyn Monroe homage at the Oscars, the Barbie star proved he definitely is not just Ken Monday night at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival with the world premiere of The Fall Guy, the feature reboot of the 1980s ABC series. In suitably death-defying style, he and costar Emily Blunt rolled up to the screening at Austin’s Paramount Theatre on the bed of the film’s signature brown-and-gold GMC stunt truck (although Gosling almost lurched out the back when he didn’t realize it was about to start rolling), leaving himself and Blunt giggling.

photo by Gary Miller

The Q&A was packed with SXSW alums: Gosling, of course, who premiered his 2015 directorial debut, Lost River, at the festival: Blunt, who launched A Quiet Place there two years later; Winston Duke, who headlined the following year with Jordan Peele’s Us; and director David Leitch and producer Kelly McCormick, whose production company 87North was back after bringing Atomic Blonde to Austin in 2017.

The hope was that the film would get the same kind of rapturous launch that those films got from a receptive SXSW audience, and at the afterparty executives from Universal were both relieved and thrilled. The best rom-com of the year so far is also its best action comedy, with Gosling playing stunt man Colt Seavers, back on set after a literally backbreaking and now splitting his time between helping get the film made, finding missing leading man Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and somehow reuniting with his lost love, director Jody Moreno (Blunt). The stunts sell themselves, as Leitch (a former stunt performer himself) deliberately worked to up the ante with gags that have not been done practically in years, including some record-setters like an 8 ½-flip car cannon roll. But the easy, charming, goofy romance between Colt and Jody is equally grin-inducing, most especially in a conversation over bullhorns mid-shoot that leaves the whole crew cringing.

Emily Blunt (photo by Gary Miller)

During the Q&A, Gosling displayed his trademark humility, making sure to credit everyone else on the cast and crew, deliberately pulling a laughing groan from the audience when he praised his costar for bringing “that blunt force to the team.” It was, it must be noted, an ironic groan, far removed from the outright booing and heckling of the prescreening “yesterday at South By” bumper that highlighted the number of AI panels at the festival. It had already received a hostile reception at many screenings during the day and drew nothing but scorn before a film that truly celebrates the practical art of filmmaking.

So it makes sense that Gosling’s highest praise was reserved for the stunt team in the audience, like Logan Holladay (who pulled off that record-setting flip) and Gosling’s highly flammable stunt double Ben Jenkin. Sure, some of it could have been pulled off in VFX, and Leitch made sure to credit the VFX team. But as a love letter to those that bash, crash, and set themselves on fire, he said, “This is a movie that really had to be true to the roots of stunts.”

The Fall Guy

Headliner, World Premiere

Tuesday, March 12, Paramount Theatre