{"id":568504,"date":"2026-07-26T05:28:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568504\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T05:28:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:28:25","slug":"nicolas-winding-refn-talks-drive-15th-anniversary-ryan-gosling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/568504\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicolas Winding Refn talks Drive 15th anniversary, Ryan Gosling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drive<\/a> premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, winning Best Director for Nicolas Winding Refn<\/a>. In the 15 years since its September release, the crime thriller has become iconic with Ryan Gosling<\/a>\u2019s scorpion jacket, the neon lighting of L.A. at night, and music by Chromatics, Desire, and more, not to mention the score by Cliff Martinez.<\/p>\n

Refn almost blew his first meeting with Gosling, he shared at a 15th anniversary screening at American Cinematheque\u2019s Los Feliz theater Friday night. The actor and director were paired up for a \u201cprofessional meeting,\u201d not any specific project. Refn was not at his best.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was high as a kite on this anti-flu medicine that Harrison Ford<\/a> slipped into my drink prior,\u201d Refn said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t go very well. It was a disaster, like a first date. I asked him to take me home. I didn\u2019t know L.A. very well but it was a long way. So he said, \u2018Sure, I\u2019ll give you a ride.\u2019 We\u2019re driving and it\u2019s all very silent. It\u2019s very awkward between us because it didn\u2019t really amount to anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LOS<\/a> \"Russell<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Gosling in ‘Drive’ FilmDistrict<\/p>\n

The flu meds compromised Refn\u2019s hearing. So when Gosling turned on the radio, Refn started singing along to \u201cI Can\u2019t Fight This Feeling Anymore\u201d by REO Speedwagon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my hearing\u2019s very low, I turn it really loud, like obnoxiously loud,\u201d Refn said. I build myself into a frenzy and I started to sing along to the lyrics and I\u2019m singing as loud as I can, I begin to cry. I\u2019m hazy-eyed, emotionally unstable. Life was very weird at that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refn was already aware of a screenplay adaptation of James Sallis\u2019s Drive. The car karaoke inspired Refn to take the approach seen in the final film. Hossein Amini would write the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cI turned to Ryan and I scream in his face because the music is so loud,\u201d Refn said. \u201cI say, \u2018I got it. We\u2019re going to make a movie about a man who drives around at night listening to pop music because that\u2019s his emotional relief.’ Ryan said, \u2018I\u2019m in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The script was originally at Universal, who Refn said saw it as a way to capitalize on their success with the Fast and the Furious movies. In fact, Sarah Deming sued distributor FilmDistrict for misleading her to believe Drive was more action-packed. Refn said his financiers, secured at the Cannes market, were equally oblivious.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shooting draft, Hos and I, we delivered the day before we started shooting which no one bothered to read in production, meaning the financiers,\u201d Refn said. \u201cSo when they saw the movie, they were like, \u2018What movie is this? It\u2019s terrible. Why are they just looking at each other? Is there any more footage?\u2019 And there wasn\u2019t. Drive is the kind of movie that was born and then everyone hated it until everyone loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of their major objections was to the music. Had they gotten their way, the Drive soundtrack might have been a bargain bin compilation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like, \u2018Can\u2019t you use like classic rock?\u2019\u201d Refn shared. \u201cI was like, Kid Rock? What are you talking about? It\u2019s not a Calvin Klein commercial. They just didn\u2019t have really good taste in music.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to musical musing at night, Refn also saw Drive as a love story. Gosling\u2019s character, known only as Driver, falls for his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan). Irene\u2019s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), returns from prison in debt to mobsters so Driver tries to help him. Refn set the love story in the crime film, but his inspiration was much more mainstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I grew up in New York, there was a film that made a huge impression on me which was a film called Sixteen Candles which I think is an absolute amazing film,\u201d Refn said. \u201cWhen I was making Drive, I was remembering that film. The way that Molly Ringwald and that model falls in love was so magical for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CareyCarey Mulligan in ‘Drive’ FilmDistrict<\/p>\n

One of Drive\u2019s most violent scenes is actually a love scene in Refn\u2019s eyes. When mobsters find the apartment, Driver smashes a hit man\u2019s head in in an elevator. The scene would have been a gunfight in the parking garage in the Universal version.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shootout scene was kind of reminiscent of a Universal Fast and Furious kind of knockoff,\u201d Refn said. \u201cA shootout in a garage? I couldn\u2019t wrap my head around it. I was more interested in this elevator scene because it\u2019s a love story that is completely sexless, meaning that it\u2019s about falling in love. It\u2019s like teenage love stories. It\u2019s not complicated. He needed to give her a kiss but he only had one. So it\u2019s the only kiss and it\u2019s the farewell kiss. But it\u2019s also his transformation kiss because he\u2019s now going to become a superhero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Refn\u2019s lighting change once Driver springs into action confused the crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lights were switched,\u201d Refn said. \u201cSuddenly film production was like, \u2018What\u2019s happening with the electricity in the building?\u2019 They learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refn devised the elevator scene on the set. He said he\u2019s avoided larger budget films because with $100 million or more on the line, he\u2019d lose the freedom to create such scenes on the fly. Even though the budget was $12 million, the elevator scene survived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would maybe not go if you had a certain studio or executives behind you that already had a marketing plan in place,\u201d Refn said. \u201cThere are certain things you would not be able to do because of political reasons. I think it\u2019s important if there\u2019s any filmmakers here, at least in my opinion, you have to be completely free. Free not just creatively but free financially. With every dollar you have you have a headache. How many headaches d o you want?\u201d<\/p>\n

His artistic resolve has only strengthened recently. In 2023, a leaking heart caused Refn to clinically die for 25 minutes. The experience made him value time spent making and watching film even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy human respect for others, if I have to take their time, I need to give them an experience, not just information,\u201d Refn said. \u201cMost entertainment is information. It\u2019s giving and taking information but I don\u2019t necessarily think that\u2019s an experience. That\u2019s just consuming. I think there are ways that we always have to remember that creativity has to convult emotions that then creates a thought and a thought is a human experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hopes to collaborate with Gosling again, too. Gosling stepped in for Refn\u2019s next movie, Only God Forgives, when another actor dropped out. Refn would not name the original actor, but said he called that actor\u2019s agent to thank him for dropping out when he ended up with Gosling instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cRyan and I have always had this mantra that we know we have one more left in us,\u201d Refn said. \u201cBut because we have done the action superhero movie and we\u2019ve done the more existential, I call it the installation film, the only thing we have left to do is a comedy. Whatever we\u2019re going to make, it\u2019s going to be really funny.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drive premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, winning Best Director for Nicolas Winding Refn. In the 15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,30965,93,18942,61,60,197515,22822],"class_list":["post-568504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-drive","tag-entertainment","tag-harrison-ford","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nicolas-winding-refn","tag-ryan-gosling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}