The Notebook director told Ryan Gosling that he lacked leading man qualities

Ryan Gosling had to swallow some cold hard facts at the beginning of his career.

In a recent cover story for GQ, the 42-year-old actor revealed that the director of his acclaimed film The Notebook told him that he was only cast because he didn’t fit a typical mold for a leading man.

“[Nick Cassavetes] straight up told me: ‘The fact that you have no natural leading man qualities is why I want you to be my leading man,'” the Gray Man actor said.

Gosling starred alongside Rachel McAdams as star-crossed lovers in the 2004 romance film, adapted from the novel by Nicholas Sparks of the same name.

He also recalled his conversation with Cassavetes in an interview with the Company magazine back in 2012, revealing that the director wanted him to "play this role because you're not like the other young actors out there in Hollywood. You're not handsome, you're not cool, you're just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts."

Speaking to GQ, the actor noted that he was cast in 2001’s The Believer for similar reasons.

“The fact that I wasn’t really right for it was exactly [director Henry Bean] he thought I was right for it," the Barbie actor shared.