Saoirse Ronan Says It Was ‘Sad’ but ‘Valid’ When Ryan Gosling Got Fired From ‘Lovely Bones’ After 60-Pound Weight Gain: ‘It’s Not Personal’

Saoirse Ronan recently appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast and remembered the dramatic casting switch that occurred during the making of Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones.” The director originally cast Ryan Gosling as the father of Ronan’s protagonist, but the actor was replaced by Mark Wahlberg just days before filming after Jackson disagreed with Gosling’s decision to gain 60 pounds for the role.

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Jackson never started filming “The Lovely Bones” with Gosling, but Ronan revealed the cast had already “done some prep” by the time Gosling got fired. Ronan had bonded with Gosling and was sad to see him ago.

“I think I just loved Ryan and his dog, George, and I was just sad that, you know, he wasn’t gonna be around,” Ronan said. “But I think the reasons why they parted were totally valid, and I’ve spoken to both [Gosling and Jackson] now and it happens. Do you know what I mean? It’s not personal, necessarily. It’s like sometimes you’re just not on the same page.”

“Mark was able to step in, and he was a father,” Ronan added. “He was a father to, like, I don’t know, three kids? He probably had an experience of that that Ryan felt he didn’t. Ryan was like 27. He was young.”

Ronan would get the chance to work with Gosling a few years later when he cast her to lead his directorial debut “Lost River.”

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Gosling spoke to THR a year after “The Lovely Bones” opened in theaters and revealed his firing was due to his weight gain. The actor explained: “We had a different idea of how the character should look. I really believed he should be 210 pounds. We didn’t talk very much during the preproduction process, which was the problem.”

“It was a huge movie, and there’s so many things to deal with, and he couldn’t deal with the actors individually,” Gosling added. “I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong. Then I was fat and unemployed.”

Watch Ronan’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.

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