Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. He came to prominence at age 13 for being a child star on the Disney Channel's The Mickey Mouse Club (1993–1995), and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs, including Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1995) and Goosebumps (1996). His first film role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001), and he went on to star in several independent films, including Murder by Numbers (2002), The Slaughter Rule (2002), and The United States of Leland (2003). Gosling gained wider recognition in 2004 with a leading role in the commercially successful romance The Notebook. For playing a drug-addicted teacher in Half Nelson (2006), Gosling was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the seventh-youngest nominee at that time. He next played a socially inept loner in Lars and the Real Girl (2007). After a brief hiatus, he starred in the marital drama Blue Valentine (2010). Gosling co-starred in three mainstream films in 2011, the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love, the political drama The Ides of March, and the action drama Drive, all of which were critical and commercial successes. He also starred in the acclaimed financial satire The Big Short (2015) and the romantic musical La La Land (2016), the latter of which won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Further acclaim followed with the science fiction thriller Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and the biopic First Man (2018). In addition to acting, he made his directorial debut in 2014's Lost River.