Shared with you
Co-writer and director Derek Cianfrance claims that he would not have made the movie without Bradley Cooper cast as Avery Cross. In fact, he drove five hours to Montreal, Quebec to meet with Cooper in person to convince him to take the role. Cianfrance says he did write the role for Cooper, "a guy who's paraded around as a hero, but inside feels corrupted."
In the audio commentary, co-writer and director Derek Cianfrance says that his financier would give him the budget he wanted if he shrank the 158-page script to 120 pages. Without removing anything, he used a smaller font and extended the margins. He says no one noticed.
The method Luke (Ryan Gosling) and Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) use to rob the banks was the actual method "Friday Night Robber" Carl Gugasian successfully used for over thirty years.
Two months before filming, Andrij Parekh, who shot Blue Valentine (2010), refused to do the film largely because of the Globe of Death stunt in the opening. According to Derek Cianfrance, Parekh spoke to him on the phone saying he refused to do the film because he had dreamed that he would be killed during filming. This nearly became a reality, as during the filming of the stunt, cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was nearly killed; luckily, he was only knocked unconscious when a motorcycle landed on top of him during filming the second take of the stunt inside the cage. At the time, he was wearing heavy protection gear and a helmet.
Ryan Gosling had to learn how to ride a motorcycle for his role. He learned it from Rick Miller, who also had done a lot of the riding in the Batman movies.