On the twentieth anniversary of The Notebook, director Nick Cassavetes regrets spilling the beans on the Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling feud.
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of The Notebook, the romantic drama which follows two young lovers who are threatened by the difference in their respective social classes. In the years since, The Notebook has also become known for the major feud between stars Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, who apparently couldn’t stand one another.
The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes was the one who spilled the beans on the feud ten years ago, and it’s an act he now regrets. “The last time I did an interview on this thing, I spilled the beans on that,” Cassavetes told Entertainment Weekly. “I regretted it. Everyone’s like, why are you telling that? I’m like, I don’t know. It caught me on a bad day, but if [McAdams and Gosling] are around, I apologize to you guys. I shouldn’t have spilled the beans.“
Cassavetes first revealed that the two stars didn’t get along on set while speaking with VH1 in 2014. “Maybe I’m not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not,” Cassavetes said. “Ryan came to me, and there’s 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, ‘Nick come here.’ 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.’” After retreating to a private room, McAdams and Gosling screamed at one another for a while, and things got better. “The rest of the film wasn’t smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing,” Cassavetes said.
Despite the animosity between the pair, McAdams and Gosling did wind up dating from 2005 to 2007. “They fell in love, and became a wonderful, wonderful fiery couple. I still think they got lots of respect and love for each other, but in the beginning, it wasn’t like that,” Cassavetes told EW, “but they’re both the greatest actors in the world, and some of the things that I asked them to play were so difficult, and there was nothing they couldn’t do.“