Ryan Gosling may be a Ken doll, but he was never viewed as cookie-cutter.

The “Barbie” actor revealed during a GQ cover story that his iconic breakout role in 2004 romance “The Notebook” came out of subverted casting. Director Nick Cassavetes told Gosling that playing Noah, opposite Rachel McAdams’ Ali, in the decades-spanning epic would make for an unexpected choice.

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

He went on to compare his early career to a therapy of sorts, saying, “I was trying to find a place to put all these things that were happening to me. And these films became ways to do that, like time capsules. So you kinda make the movie for yourselves. Doesn’t matter if anyone else does, you know? But I think, having done a lot of that,...