There's tension in The Notebook, alright. The epic rom com, if you haven't ever watched it through blurring tears, contains a love triangle and a lot of angst, as well as loads of sweep-you-off-your-feet romance. And the tension was palpable on set, too, as it turns out Ryan Gosling detested his co-star Rachel McAdams(despite the actress going on to become his real-life girlfriend).
The director, Nick Cassavetes, who deliberately hired Ryan because he 'wasn't handsome' (sacrilege, we know, but this director did make Ryan famous after all so we can't be too livid), revealed: 'They were really not getting along one day on set. Really not. And Ryan came to me, and there's 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says "Nick, come here." And 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.'
In the interview with VH1, 10 years on from the film's release, he added that this tension ended up in the pair arguing and eventually working through their issues: 'We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other…everybody came out like, “All right let’s do this." 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.'
Awww. Maybe it was the romance of the film which rubbed off on the two leads? The pair ended up dating IRL for four years before breaking up in 2008. They've both since gone on to date other people, but with Ryan currently single, and Rachel and Jake Gyllenhaal still just a rumour, you never know white how it will all work out further down the line… Just like in the film!
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.