Teaming up with his Blue Valentine director, Derek Cianfrance, Ryan Gosling jumps into the body of Luke Glanton for The Place Beyond the Pines. A daredevil motorcycle entertainer for a traveling fair, the heavily tattooed Luke begins to rob banks to provide for the child he never knew he had, perpetuating a chain of bad decisions that run down his bloodline through the years. During a roundtable discussion for the film in New York City, Ryan spoke about the aspects of Luke he connects to, his coming work as a director, and screeching like a scared child. Enjoy!

Do you ride a motorcycle in parts of The Place Beyond the Pines?

I do, yeah.

Can you talk about that training they put you through?

Well, it was just basically me and Rick Miller. [In The Dark Knight movies], when Batman gets on the motorcycle, it’s Rick Miller in the Batman suit. So he is the best, and he’s become a good friend, and we just were riding motorcycles around Schenectady for a month — that was the training.

Do you prefer working with Derek [Cianfrance] and his style of directing as opposed to other directors who may be a little more restraining? He said that he “gives you free will.”

Yeah, he says that, but that’s not true. (laughter) For instance, with the face tattoo, I regretted it instantly, and I said this looks ridiculous, I can’t do this to me or your movie. I regretted it right away, and he said, “Well that’s what people do with face tattoos — they regret it.” Then he said, “Well, this movie is about consequences, so now you are stuck with it.” I was upset at the time, but I was glad that he held my feet to the fire in that way, because it did give me the sense of shame that I don’t think I could have acted in the film without. I didn’t want to be photographed or even look at myself in the mirror, and I felt ridiculous and I started to feel probably exactly how this character felt. This was a character who was a melting pot of every masculine cliché: tattoos, muscles, and guns, and when he is presented with this child that he didn’t know that he had, it’s like a mirror is held up to him and he realizes that he’s not a man at all.

Parenting is already kind of freaky enough on its own. Has this role kind of freaked you out about the idea of parenting even more?

Well, I don’t know. I really like this kid who played our kid, Tony Pizza — That’s his name, Tony Pizza, Jr., actually. If they could all be like Tony Pizza, I guess I would have them.

“When you are a director, there’s nowhere to hide. You can hide behind a lot of things as an actor, but as a filmmaker, you are responsible for everything”

What did you find in your character Luke that you could relate to?

Well, I guess in the way that I have these fantasies. For instance, when Derek and I were making Blue Valentine, I said to him that I thought I figured out a way to get away with robbing a bank. If I wasn’t so afraid of jail I would do it, I was that sure of it; which I guess means I am not too confident in my plan. (laughter) He said, “That’s crazy, I just wrote a script about that.” So we thought we should try and make that movie, but it was a fantasy, and the reality of it was very, very different.

Being set in Schenectady is definitely the opposite of fantasy — it’s pretty hardscrabble. So how did that being up there — staying in a Holiday Inn or whatever — how did that inform your character? Did it give you an idea of what kind of life he led?

It did, and I think it is part of the beauty of the way Derek works, that he just creates an environment for you that is so natural — that if you are in it long enough, you acclimate to it in a certain degree. For instance, in the bank scenes, those are the real tellers that work at that bank, and people that go to that bank, so he tries to surround you with as much as he can. It was as many people from that environment as possible, so your goal is to try and match their aura; you try and get to where they are at.

What lessons have you learned from Derek to help you to direct? Are you planning on it, are you working on it?

Yeah, in a couple of months.

Are you worried about it?

Not anymore — I was until I got this cast. The cast is so good; you can’t mess that up.

But what lessons have you learned?

Well, I guess it’s that as much as you want to try and adopt the styles, I don’t think it’s wise. It feels like the things that I admire about the filmmakers who I have worked with is that they are themselves. They don’t try and make movies like anyone else. It’s not in an egocentric way, either. It’s just that I think when you are a director, there’s nowhere to hide, and you are completely exposed. As an actor you can say, “Well it’s the character,” or, “I didn’t write it, I didn’t direct it, I didn’t cut it, I didn’t score it, I didn’t make that poster.” (laughter) You can hide behind a lot of things as an actor, whereas a filmmaker, you are responsible for everything, and I guess I didn’t realize exactly how much you can tell about a filmmaker by their films.

So at a certain point, you thought you could do this. When did you know that you could be an actor, an adult dramatic actor?

I don’t know if there was a specific moment, or even that I do know that now. Fluff is always within reach. (laughter)

You have kind of emerged.

That’s nice, but the reality is that I was sort of gift wrapped a career by Henry Bean, who gave me this opportunity to do this movie, The Believer. That was coming off doing “Young Hercules” and “The Mickey Mouse Club” — it was something that gave me the opportunity to break out of that in a way that I don’t think I could have done without that opportunity. It was sort of as if I couldn’t get an audition for The Believer or a movie like that because of my past. Yet after that film, it was like suddenly people were talking to me like I was some serious person all of a sudden. I tried to play that role for awhile, because it felt good, but it wasn’t something that I knew; it was something I was sort of pretending to be — and then you believe it at a certain point, until you make it.

By now, audience members have become attuned to your voice, so I was kind of taken back when that high-pitched squeal comes out of you during the robbery scenes. Was that something you worked on beforehand, or just something that came out in the moment?

It was fear; I did that 22 times. Each take was 10 minutes. It would start four blocks down the street, where I would ride the motorcycle up to the bank, run in, the camera would come in with me and I would rob it — but I’ll tell you what it really came from. When I first started robbing the bank, I looked down and people were smiling and filming me with their cell phones. (laughter) They were just having a great time being robbed, and then Derek came up to me and he was very angry, and he blamed me for not being scary enough. He said, “Look at these people, they are having a good time.” (laughter) And he made me do 22 takes of trying to scare them, and I think at a certain point I got desperate. (laughter)