Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Sat 16 May 2026 16:45, UK
Every actor will find themselves working alongside someone they dislike at one point or another, but what about when the person you dislike is playing your love interest in a moving romantic drama?
Especially because such films require a chemistry reading, you’d think that two actors with an obvious distaste for one another wouldn’t get hired alongside each other, but sometimes the hatred forms gradually, which Ryan Gosling learned about on the set of an early career highlight that left him desperate for his love interest to be recast, even though they were in the midst of shooting.
Although the actor had begun his film career in a series of independent movies, often opting for gritty roles like playing a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer, within a few years, he was vying for the lead role in the romantic movie to end all romantic movies.
Directed by Nick Cassavetes, the son of indie cinema titan John Cassavetes and legendary actor Gena Rowlands, The Notebook is a proper tear-jerker, and Gosling was successfully cast as the young lumber mill worker Noah, who begins a relationship with a woman named Allie, played by Rachel McAdams, whose older versions were portrayed by James Garner and Rowlands. Released the same year that McAdams played the loveable villain Regina George in Mean Girls, 2004 proved to be a breakout period for the actor who had only been in a few movies by this point.
Yet, filming The Notebook proved to be a challenge, because Gosling and McAdams kept clashing with one another, with Cassavetes revealing to VH1 that the pair were constantly butting heads on set: “Maybe I’m not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not”.
Cassavetes launched into the details, recalling, “Ryan came to me, and there’s 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, ‘Nick, come here’. He’s doing a scene with Rachel, and he says, ‘Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off-camera with me?’ I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘I can’t. I can’t do it with her. I’m just not getting anything from this’.”
The director explained that the pair often argued, but despite this, their connection onscreen somehow worked. The Notebook became a massive hit, and the pair even won ‘Best Movie Kiss’ at the MTV Movie Awards.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Cassavetes added of the aftermath and how they were ultimately able to film the whole thing, “We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other. I walked out… And it got better after that, you know? They had it out… I think Ryan respected her for standing up for her character, and Rachel was happy to get that out in the open. The rest of the film wasn’t smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing.”
But most unexpectedly, after the drama of filming the movie, regardless of all these arguments and Gosling’s desire to have McAdams recast, they started dating. The pair were together for two years, with Cassavetes describing them as a “wonderful fiery couple”, and while they might not have lasted, the fact that they were able to look beyond their differences together while filming The Notebook is really quite remarkable.
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