RYAN VS. RYAN
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Updated November 2, 2012
RYAN VS. RYAN
Two Canadian actors duke it out for your love. In one corner, with come-hither eyes and a scratchy voice, we have Ryan Gosling. And in the other corner, sporting expertly gelled hair and a megawatt smile, is Ryan Reynolds. It's an all-out brawl for the hearts and minds (and other parts) of women across the nation
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| Breakthrough Role | A Rachel McAdams–loving romantic in The Notebook. | A Tara Reid–tolerating frat boy in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. |
| Also Spotted | Opposite Anthony Hopkins in Fracture; opposite a crack pipe in Half Nelson; opposite Bianca the blow-up doll in Lars and the Real Girl. | Opposite Little Miss Sunshine in Definitely, Maybe; opposite a fat suit in Just Friends; opposite a demonic house in The Amityville Horror. |
| Up Next | All Good Things, where he’ll play a real-life millionaire with mild autism who killed several people – including his wife – then went on the lam disguised as a woman. And you thought Lars was a complicated fellow. | X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where he’ll play a one-time assassin experimented on by the Canadian government, which gives him superhuman healing powers (yay!) but turns his body into a giant callus (boo). |
| Side Projects | Directed a film about child soldiers in northern Uganda; DJed at a Hollywood club (with a heavy rotation of 1950s doo-wop). | Spent a week rebuilding an orphanage in southern Malawi; blogged on The Huffington Post (about the politics of competitive eating). |
| Style | A weakness for leather jackets, skinny ties, V-neck sweaters, unkempt facial hair and three-piece houndstooth suits. | A weakness for striped scarves, open-collar shirts, sweater vests, tidy facial hair and arm candy. |
| Build | The consensus seems to be “lanky.” | The consensus rented Blade: Trinity, attempted to caress his washboard abs through the television screen and wondered when technology would get its act together. |
| Questionable Tattoo on Left Inner Wrist | A self-described “homemade” and “ridiculous” black rectangle. “A tattoo should never be meaningful,” he says, “because at a certain point you’re going to hate it, and it might as well make you laugh.” | An über-meaningful tattoo implores, “Know Thyself.” He explains, “It was about disappointing my parents.” |
| Obligatory Teenage Dues-Paying on Canadian TV | Guest spots on Ready or Not and Road to Avonlea, plus a starring role in the high-school-on-a-cruise-ship comedy Breaker High. | Numerous movies of the week, which he says mostly involved “softly weeping with ex–soap stars.” |
| Excruciating Performance Forever Preserved on YouTube | At 12, he nabbed a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club. Check out his work in “Cry for You,” a Boyz II Men–style ballad featuring Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and several wind machines. | At 19, he starred in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a TV movie that predated the series. Check out his squeaky voice and James Van Der Beek–style hairdo. |
| Life Imitates Art | Loved up co-star McAdams for two years. The pair feuded all through the filming of The Notebook – their director recalls that “they hated each other” – but, after meeting again in New York, decided they might have been wrong. | Not long after the premiere of Definitely, Maybe – in which he pops the question to several women – Reynolds proposed to Scarlett Johansson, and they got married on September 27, 2008. Previously, he spent two years engaged to Alanis Morissette. |
| Breakup Ettiquette | Months after he split with McAdams, he went on the record with GQ, calling her “one of the great loves of my life.” No wonder they were recently spotted together in Toronto. | Months after his relationship with Morissette ended, he was photographed gallivanting around Spain with ScarJo. |
| Ryan Ripple Effect | Disney reprimanded the Mouseketeer for teaching Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears a little sex ed. He later confessed to feeling responsible for Britney’s naughty performances, saying, “When I see her with a snake around her neck, I think, Did I do that?” | After their engagement fell apart, Morissette announced she was taking a break from serial monogamy. “No-strings relationships have cured me of love addiction,” she said, adding, “I’ve had lots of dates and lots of sex.” |
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| Which Ryan is your favourite? Share your comments. | ||
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