After spending years as a reluctant meme, Ryan Gosling is speaking out about the pain of being ruthlessly misquoted. For what feels like eons now, Gosling's face has popped up all over the internet alongside the seemingly harmless expression "Hey girl." The only problem, Gosling remindedVariety Wednesday, is that he never even said that shit. Not once in his entire life.
"I've never said that," said Gosling, who will next be seen alongside Emma Stone in Damien Chazelle's La La Land. In fact, Gosling doesn’t have a clue how the whole "Hey girl" nonsense started. "Do you remember when Fabio got hit in the face with a pigeon on the roller coaster and it broke his nose?" Gosling explained. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the pigeon and the internet is Fabio's face. Actually, I don't know if I'm the pigeon or I'm Fabio's face. Depends on the day, I guess."
As it turns out, I actually do not remember Fabio getting slapped by a rude pigeon. But the internet remembers:
But enough about pigeons and memes for a second. Chazelle hit up the Guardian back in September to praise Gosling and Stone's work in La La Land, a film he describes as an ode to Los Angeles. "I guess you write what you know," Chazelle said. "There's something to be said for having even unrealistic dreams. Even if the dreams don't come true—that to me is what's beautiful about Los Angeles. It's full of these people who have moved there to chase these dreams." In summary, dreams > memes.
