LA.COMFIDENTIAL > CELEBS.

The premiere of "Lars and the Real Girl" at the motion picture academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theatre Tuesday night was a reunion for stars Ryan Gosling, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson and director Craig Gillespie, who joined such guests as Warren Beatty, Amy Adams and Rachel Leigh Cook.

Gillespie worked a long time to get financial backing for a movie he knew was a hard sell: It has Gosling playing a socially challenged introvert whose new girlfriend, Bianca, is a life-size doll.

"Four years of pitching it, so we knew it was a hard sell," he says.

"Nancy Oliver wrote this great script, and everyone agreed that it was a beautiful script. Nobody wanted to make it.

"Eventually Sidney Kimmel jumped on board ... and took that leap of faith."

No one was more surprised than Oliver that her little fable got made:

"I never even thought about selling it at all, I wrote it for fun."

For Gosling, the part of Lars Lindstrom was a nice departure from roles like his Oscar-nominated turn as a drug-addicted teacher in "Half Nelson."

"He's just the sweetest, nicest, most imaginative, lovely guy, and you don't really read characters that are that good," Gosling says. "A lot of my time has been spent playing parts investigating the dark side, the self-destructive side of myself and of these characters. It was really nice to play somebody who doesn't really have that side."

"Lars" opens in New York and L.A. Oct. 12 and nationwide Oct. 26. For more on Gosling, turn to Sunday's LA.COM.

>GREG HERNANDEZ/LA.COM

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(color) Ryan Gosling and Patricia Clarkson

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