Saoirse Ronan Talks About Ryan Gosling’s ‘Sad’ Firing From ‘The Lovely Bones’

Saoirse Ronan is revealing her true feelings about Ryan Gosling’s firing from her 2009 thriller The Lovely Bones.

Gosling was originally cast to play her dad in the film, but was let go the day filming was to start and replaced by Mark Wahlberg. While the cameras hadn’t started rolling, the Ladybird actress says the cast had “done some prep.”

Ronan made the revelation on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz.

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

The disagreement Ronan is referring to has to do with Gosling and the film’s director, Peter Jackson, being at odds about whether or not Gosling was right for the role after he gained 60 pounds to play it.

Gosling spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in 2010 about his dismissal from the film.

“We had a different idea of how the character should look… I really believed he should be 210 pounds,” Gosling told the outlet.

“We didn’t talk very much during the preproduction process, which was the problem,” Gosling explained. “It was a huge movie, and there’s so many things to deal with, and he couldn’t deal with the actors individually. I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong.

Gosling attributed the weight gain to drinking melted ice cream. “Then I was fat and unemployed,” he joked.

The film, based on a 2002 novel of the same name, would go on to rake in over $93 million worldwide and earn Stanley Tucci, who played a killer pedophile, his first Oscar nomination. Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, and Michael Imperioli rounded out the cast.