‘The Actor’ Will Star Ryan Gosling As An Actor With Amnesia Stranded In A Mysterious Small Town
Ryan Goslingalready has several new projects in the works, but one more won’t hurt. Gosling is now set to star inThe Actor, a thriller based on the Donald E. Westlake novelMemory. Gosling will play a 1950s actor from New York named Paul Cole, who is beaten, left for dead, and suffering from amnesia in a small, mysterious Ohio town.Duke Johnson, co-director ofAnomalisa, will helm a script he co-wrote withStephen Cooney.
Deadline broke the news on Ryan Gosling starring inThe Actor, revealing that Gosling will play “New York actor Paul Cole, who is beaten and left for dead in 1950s Ohio. Stripped of his memory and stranded in a mysterious small town, Paul struggles to get back home, piece together and reclaim the life and identity he’s lost. The Actor follows a journey relatable to many: to find home, to find love, and ultimately to find ourselves.”
The film is an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake novelMemory, which has the following synopsis: “Hospitalized after a liaison with another man’s wife ends in violence, Paul Cole has just one goal: to rebuild his shattered life. But with his memory damaged, the police hounding him, and no way even to get home, Paul’s facing steep odds – and a bleak fate if he fails…”
Donald E. Westlake wrote more than 100 novels during his career, andMemorywas actually a “lost” novel that was published after his death. As the book jacket puts it: “This final, never-before-published novel by three-time Edgar Award winner Donald E. Westlake is a noir masterpiece, a dark and painful portrait of a man’s struggle against merciless forces that threaten to strip him of his very identity.” Duke Johnson is directing the pic and writing the script with Stephen Cooney.
Gosling hasn’t appeared in a feature film since 2018’s criminally underratedFirst Man, but he has several projects on the horizon. He’s starring in the Russo Brothers Netflix movieThe Grey Manalongside Chris Evans, he’s making an astronaut movie with Phil Lord and Chris Miller calledProject Hail Mary, he has anuntitled movie about a stuntmanlined-up with director David Leitch, and he’s set to star in Leigh Whannell’s new take onThe Wolfman. With all that in mind, it’s unclear when he’ll get around to shootingThe Actor. BothThe Grey ManandWolfmanare reported to be in pre-production, so he’ll be working on those titles first.
