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Nicolas Winding Refn’s mid-budget crime drama Drive was released to positive reviews back in 2011. Its mix of graphic violence and minimal dialogue, combined with stylized visuals and an intoxicating synth soundtrack, led to a solid following with audiences looking for something different from the standard blockbusters at their local multiplex.
Ryan Gosling, who starred in Drive as a subdued LA getaway driver who gets tangled up with the wrong woman, had very few lines to say in the movie, which allowed the actor to use subtle physicality to convey his driver’s thoughts and emotions. However, on the page, the character was supposed to have much more dialogue, until Gosling made a significant change when discussing the script on the first day of shooting that would alter the movie’s vibe for the better.
“Ryan, who has a very specific process, said, ‘This is a character that doesn’t speak much, so I don’t think I’m going to say much of this dialogue,’” Drive producer Marc Platt told THR. “It was an independently financed movie, and I froze for a moment because I thought ‘people have put all [this money in].’ So I sweat it a little bit, which never happened to me [before].”
Platt says he understood Gosling’s choice to ditch most of the script’s dialogue as soon as the camera started rolling. “I knew in an instant that he’d made such a smart, intuitive, truthful decision. That character didn’t speak, and it made him so much more powerful.”
Gosling’s star power grew considerably after he delivered a strong central performance in the film. He would go on to star in La La Land and Barbie, both of which landed him Academy Award nominations. He’s only made one movie since Barbie, but he has two big sci-fi films on the horizon: Lord and Miller’s Project Hail Mary next year, and the standalone Star Wars movie, Starfighter, set for release in 2027.
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