Passion Pit, Spoon, and Slayer were the headliners at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin this past weekend, but Ryan Gosling stole the show.
The equally hunky and talented leading man (The Notebook, Blue Valentine, Drive) was spotted at the festival almost immediately: backstage with a camera crew talking to San Francisco psych-rockers Thee Oh Sees and onstage watching reunited New York glam-band D Generation (Gosling is circled in red, above). Within a few hours of the festival’s start, someone created a “Ryan Gosling at Fun Fun Fun Fest” Tumblr, and soon, it was flooded with photos from celebrity rubber-neckers.
What brought Gosling to Austin? As Matthew Odam of the Austin American-Statesman reported, it would seem Gosling is working on a new movie called Lawless with the Austin-based director Terence Malick (Tree of Life). Malick had already graced the scene with Christian Bale at September’s Austin City limits festival, and sure enough, Malick was with Gosling at Fun Fun Fun Fest, too. (So was actress Rooney Mara, an apparent co-star.)
Malick being Malick, nobody yet knows what the film’s really about. But Gawker’s Lauri Apple had a few stern thoughts about what all this starsturck Twitpic-ing might say about the good people of Austin:
In my Austin day (grabs corncob pipe, rearranges threadbare, Lone Star flag afghan on lap), the city’s hip, cool vibe kept people in line whenever a star came to town to appear at SXSW or make a movie or play a show. People were too laid-back (or high) to get excited and take paparazzi-style pictures of celebrities. (Also, people didn’t have smartphones yet, but this is a trifling detail.) Austin, what’s gotten into you? Go have some dinner at Polvo’s, take a long walk along South Lamar, and think about what you’ve become.
Apple also talked to the Austin-based writer and artist Austin Kleon, who created the Tumblr. He told her it was “[q]uite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve done on the internet. Definitely the most immediately popular.”
