Saoirse Ronan was “sad” Ryan Gosling was sacked from ‘The Lovely Bones’ but it was “totally valid”

Saoirse Ronan has admitted that she was “sad” that Ryan Gosling was sacked from a leading role in The Lovely Bones.

The Lady Bird star appeared in the 2009 Peter Jackson movie alongside Mark Wahlberg, but Gosling was originally set to play her father in the film and was sacked on his first day.

Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she said that she hadn’t shot with Gosling at the time of his firing, but had “done some prep.” “I think I just loved Ryan. And his dog, George and I was just sad that, you know, he wasn’t gonna be around,” she said.

“But I think the reasons why they parted were totally valid, and I’ve spoken to both [Gosling and Jackson] 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.”

She continued: “Mark was able to step in, and he was a father. He was a father to, like, I don’t know, three kids? He probably had an experience of that that Ryan felt he didn’t. Ryan was like 27. He was young.”

Gosling himself has previously spoken about his departure from the film with The Hollywood Reporter.

He said: “We had a different idea of how the character should look. I really believed he should be 210 pounds.”

Jackson disagreed, and dropped Gosling days before production began in 2007.

“We didn’t talk very much during the preproduction process, which was the problem,” Gosling added. “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. Then I was fat and unemployed.”

Ronan and Gosling eventually appeared together in the 2014 film Lost River. “It was great then to work with him later,” Ronan added. “And, again, he’s just, like, the same. He doesn’t change.”

Elsewhere, she recently said that losing out on the part of Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films has “stayed with me over the years”.

The actor is currently starring in a supporting role in Steve McQueen’s new World War II drama Blitz, which received its world premiere at the London Film Festival on Wednesday (October 9). It will be released in cinemas on November 1.