Ryan Gosling on His Relationship With Rachel McAdams: "It Was More Romantic Than ['The Notebook']"

The Gist:

• Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling met on the set of 'The Notebook' in 2003, facing challenges as Ryan tried to get Rachel fired, resolved by the director's intervention.
• They officially started dating in 2005, a year after the film's release, overcoming initial doubts about each other.
• The couple broke up in 2007, attributing their split to the pressures of show business. Both have moved on — Rachel is with screenwriter Jamie Linden, and Ryan is married to Eva Mendes. Despite their past, they remain on good terms.

Everybody loves a showmance, and there’s no greater love than the one found on the set of a romantic film. After The Notebook was released, fans stanned a potential relationship between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, the Nicholas Sparks film’s two leads. As it turns out, Rachel and Ryan really did fall for each other!

However, their relationship timeline is a bit murky, with plenty of ups and downs. As we prepare for the Mean Girls sequel, which Rachel sadly couldn’t be a part of, and as Ryan’s Ken continues to conquer the world with his “Kenergy,” we can’t help but think back to the love they once shared. So what is their relationship timeline?

The Notebook was released in 2004, which means that Rachel and Ryan likely met in 2003 during filming. However, their relationship wasn’t all peaches and cream. In fact, Ryan actually tried to get Rachel fired! Director Nick Cassavetes revealed to VH1 (via ET), “They were really not getting along one day on set.

"And Ryan came to me, and there's 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, 'Nick come here.' And he's doing a scene with Rachel and he says, 'Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me?' I said, 'What?' He says, 'I can't. I can't do it with her. I'm just not getting anything from this.'"

Luckily, Nick was able to repair their behind-the-scenes relationship. "We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other,” he continued. “I walked out. At that point I was smoking cigarettes. I smoked a cigarette and everybody came out like, 'All right let's do this.' And it got better after that, you know?

"I think Ryan respected her for standing up for her character and Rachel was happy to get that out in the open. The rest of the film wasn't smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing."

In fact, Rachel and Ryan’s relationship was much like their characters, Allie and Noah, respectively. While the two characters fought all the time, they ended up as soulmates. Rachel and Ryan may not have been soulmates, but they did fight all the time before they dated!

While many showmances begin during the filming process, likely because of the proximity, Rachel and Ryan didn’t actually begin dating until 2005, a year after The Notebook came out. "I don't know what happened," Ryan told ET. "Two years later, I saw her in New York and we started getting the idea that maybe we were wrong about each other."

“I mean, God bless The Notebook," Ryan said in a 2007 interview with GQ. "It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that." Sadly, however, the relationship didn’t last.

While some reports say they officially ended their relationship in 2009, they were already broken up by the time Ryan was interviewed by GQ. "The only thing I remember is we both went down swingin' and we called it a draw," he said. But apparently, it came down to the fact that they are both actors with busy schedules, public lives, publicity teams, and other complicated factors.

"Show business is the bad guy," Ryan previously told The Times (via She Finds) about their breakup. "When both people are in show business, it’s too much show business. It takes all of the light, so nothing else can grow." Luckily, both Ryan and Rachel have found their happily ever afters.

Although we don’t see much of Ryan and Rachel out together, they seem to have no hard feelings towards each other. Rachel is now dating screenwriter Jamie Linden, who were first seen together in 2016. They now have two kids, a son and a daughter, so while they may not be married, their relationship is pretty serious.

Ryan, on the other hand, is married to Eva Mendes, who he’s been dating on and off since 2011. They share two daughters together, the youngest of whom was born in 2016.

So while Ryan and Rachel didn’t work out long-term, both actors have found love in Hollywood!