Ryan Gosling cast Matt Smith after watching him talk to aliens "like a boss" on ‘Doctor Who’.
The 32-year-old actor was the 11th Doctor in the BBC sci-fi series and his starring performance on the show convinced Ryan, 34, of his suitability for the villainous role in his new Gothic fairytale ‘Lost River’.
He recalled: "One day I was watching TV. I heard Matt Smith’s voice coming at me. It was Doctor Who and there was an episode where he was in a car screaming at these aliens and telling them where to go. Like a boss. Just telling all these spaceships what was what.
"As an actor I know that’s pretty hard to do, because I’m pretty sure those spaceships weren’t there. I thought, ‘Who is this guy?’
"There’s no-one like him. He’s like one of those actors from the Seventies, just themselves and nobody else. I said, ‘I have to work with that guy.’ So I tracked him down."
Meanwhile, Matt said his audition for the film took on an unusual twist.
He recalled: "It’s the only audition where I’ve talked for a good hour about what we like: music, books, everything. Then we started the scene, and the camera ran out so we ended up doing it on Ryan’s iPhone."
Ryan Gosling cast Matt Smith on the back of his Doctor Who performance
