To all the girls out there: Damien Chazelle loves Ryan Gosling as much as you do.

Chazelle appeared at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and in an interview about his directing career, he shared how he loved working with Gosling (in La La Land (2016) and First Man (2018).

“In a way, it’s the same thing you can say about a lot of the greatest film actors,” Chazelle stated of his adoration for Gosling and his face. “Something that feels like it’s fundamental to film acting as opposed to other kind of acting is the art of conveying a ton by seeming to do very little.” 

In excellent comments on his next film Babylon, which follows Hollywood in the 1920s, Chazelle compared Gosling to Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.

“It goes back to the earliest silent film actors if you think of Chaplin or Valentino,” he stated. 

“There’s a few people, not many, who, if you park the camera to their face, they can tell a whole story with only the slightest fluctuation of the brow or their eyebrows or their lips or even with no movement at all. Just holding a certain kind of expression.” 

Read also: Ryan Gosling Says He Has ‘That Ken-ergy’

Chazelle Describes What Sets Gosling Apart

For Chazelle, multiple movements and the ability to express so much with just a face make Gosling shine above the rest.

“Ryan is one of the handful of people today who have really mastered that art form,” he claimed. “Acting as an art form has existed for millennia, it’s one of the oldest art forms we have. But the art of film acting is still much younger, and something is really specific to film acting is being able to convey a whole saga in a close-up.” 

Gosling will appear in the fever drama that seems to be Barbie by Greta Gerwig.

Meanwhile, the next release from Chazelle includes this Christmas’ Babylon.

Read also: Julia Roberts Felt Lonely During the ‘Ticket to Paradise’ Shoot, The Clooneys Were There