Peter Jackson is finally weighing in on Ryan Gosling‘s infamous recasting in “The Lonely Bones,” the director’s 2009 adaptation of Alice Sebold’s novel. Gosling was originally cast as the father of Saoirse Ronan’s lead character, but revealed to THR in 2010 that he was fired from the movie after he gained 60 pounds for the role without Jackson’s consent.
During a conversation in Cannes (via Entertainment Weekly) after receiving an Honorary Palme d’Or, Jackson was asked about Gosling’s revelation and spoke candidly about the decision to drop him from the movie. Mark Wahlberg was then cast in the role.
“I won’t talk about any particular examples of actors because it’s a personal, private thing and it’s not their fault,” Jackson began. “Anytime we recast an actor, it’s actually our fault because we didn’t get the casting right and we cast the wrong person for a role. It’s not because they did anything wrong. So, I’m not going to talk about individuals, but you just got to realize that what you were imagining isn’t really quite happening, which means that we got it wrong and so we take full responsibility.”
Jackson continued, “Ryan is a fantastic actor, as we know. Films are a chemistry both on camera and behind the camera. They’re chemistry in terms of what the actor conveys to the audience of the film. It’s just a complicated sort of amalgam of communication of how somebody gels into a group of people, into a story, into a character. It’s complicated and usually you try very hard when you’re planning the film, casting it, trying to get that gel kind of right, but occasionally we make our own mistakes.”
