Beloved for his roles in romantic comedies and dramas, he says the new Netflix film provided him the opportunity to live out his childhood fantasies but he took his time before finding the perfect role. He became the leading man as a knight in shining armor in movies like The Notebook and La La Land but until now, a full-action movie he felt he could dig into hadn’t come up.

“I always wanted to make a big action movie. I just they were my first love and hat made me fall in love with movies,” he told us. “So I’ve always wanted to do one, but as you know, there’s a lot of good ones. And finding the right one took a while. But when I got this, I realized that this was it. It’s the Russos, who as much as I thought, I love action movies. They loved the more. Ane this character – I thought this character was really interesting and somebody I could have fun playing. 

At the time of his exit, Page made it clear that he only signed on for one season and was excited to pursue other projects. He said The Gray Man was a no-brainer.

“It was incredible fun. It was this thing where the script turned up, and it was the most fun thing I had read so far,” he said. “It was this kind of thrill ride from beginning to end, but also always had its eye on making sure the audience enjoying itself, but also had so much ambition that I didn’t know how you pull it off until you remember that the Russos are directing it and they can pull off pretty much anything as a thriller just to kind of attach yourself and watch them do it from close quarters. It was an absolute no-brainer. It was just loads of fun to imagine making then loads of fun to make and then even more fun to watch.”

Action films are expensive to make, so good investments are necessary. Having the film on a streaming giant like Netflix allows the film to reach a wider audience. When making an action film and factoring in the budget, the Russo Brothers explain that who you cast is the most important, as no one wants to lose money. Gosling shares striking similarities to his character’s personality in The Gray Man that the Russo brothers told us no other actor could’ve pulled off the role.

“The Gray Man in the movie is this character who likes to live in the gray, likes to be secretive, moves in the shadows,” Anthony said. “He doesn’t even really want to be doing what he’s doing as a spy. He only accepted an offer from the CIA because he was furloughed from prison. So this is a character who kind of wants to disappear and remain hidden. The movie is very much about an arc about how he has to come out of the shadows and reclaim his identity. But Ryan was so perfect for the role because he is a master of minimalism. He can convey an immense amount of interior life thoughts, emotions, charisma, vulnerability, strength, whatever it is. He can do that doing very little as an actor, and that is what was required of this character.”