Ryan Gosling Required 'Lost River' Actors to Keep a Dream Journal

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Don't most dreams include Ryan Gosling?

The actor revealed in a recent interview that he required his Lost River actors -- including Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan and his baby's mama Eva Mendes-- to keep a dream journal while filming his directorial debut. "That's a style of acting that's pretty popular right now, where actors use their dreams to connect to whatever material they're working on," Gosling explained to The Creators Project.


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While the 34-year-old movie star admitted that he was hesitant about the practice, he soon came around. "You know, you chum the waters and see what you can get. But it just played into the overall themes and narrative of the movie, which was about a woman whose dream was turning into a nightmare, and I thought that the film should have that same quality," he said. "I thought we could explore that privately and then in a literal way."

Gosling doesn't pretend that the idea of keeping a dream journal for work purposes can seem a little absurd. "I know that sounds kooky, but it's like a symbol to represent a lot of things, and it gives you a shorthand," he added. "We tried it, and it came in handy a few times. I've also never said the word kooky before, so that's a first."


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Lost River
-- which has a Video On Demand release on April 10 -- was the subject of harsh reviews when it premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The movie follows a single mother (Hendricks) who is swept into a dark underworld, while her teenage son discovers a road that leads him to a secret underwater town.

Gosling says the critics only remind him of his teenage years. "High school kind of prepares you for all this sh**," Gosling quipped of the negative reviews. "It's not that different, really. In high school every time you stuck your neck out there was always a bunch of people there ready to chop your head off. Hollywood's not different."