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Peter Jackson reflects on firing Ryan Gosling from The Lovely Bones after he gained 60 pounds for role
The director and actor had a "different idea of how the character should look".
Stephanie Augello/THR/The Hollywood Reporter/Getty Images
- Phoebe Kowhai Barnes
Published: Monday, 18 May 2026 at 12:55 pm
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The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson has spoken about his decision to fire Ryan Gosling from the film despite the actor already having gained 60 pounds for the role.
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The Lovely Bones was released in 2009 and starred Saoirse Ronan in the lead alongside Mark Wahlberg playing her father and Stanley Tucci as the villain.
Originally, Gosling had been cast as Jack Salmon, the role audiences know Mark Wahlberg for playing, but was dropped from the film after gaining a considerable amount of weight without Jackson's approval.
Now, Jackson has spoken about the decision to fire Gosling. At the ongoing Cannes Film Festival, he said: "I won’t talk about any particular examples of actors because it’s a personal, private thing and it’s not their fault.
"Anytime we recast an actor, it’s actually our fault because we didn’t get the casting right and we cast the wrong person for a role.
"It’s not because they did anything wrong. So, I’m not going to talk about individuals, but you just got to realise that what you were imagining isn’t really quite happening, which means that we got it wrong and so we take full responsibility."
The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson. Rocco Spaziani/Archivio Spaziani/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images
Jackson continued: "Ryan is a fantastic actor, as we know. Films are a chemistry both on camera and behind the camera. They’re chemistry in terms of what the actor conveys to the audience of the film.
"It’s just a complicated sort of amalgam of communication of how somebody gels into a group of people, into a story, into a character. It’s complicated and usually you try very hard when you’re planning the film, casting it, trying to get that gel kind of right, but occasionally we make our own mistakes."
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Gosling had already discussed the events back in 2010, saying he and Jackson had a "different idea of how the character should look".
Though Gosling never began filming The Lovely Bones, some "prep work" for the film had already been done – including bonding with lead Saoirse Ronan.
In 2024, the Irish actress also reflected on the recasting saying that she was "sad" to see Ryan go but that "the reasons why they [Jackson and Gosling] parted were totally valid".
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Authors
Phoebe Kowhai BarnesFreelance Writer
Phoebe Kowhai Barnes is a Freelance Writer who covers pop culture and entertainment programmes for the Radio Times. She previously worked as the Senior Assistant Editor at The Tab where she managed its local department. She obtained a BA (Hons) in English Literature from University of Nottingham.
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