Ryan Gosling melts our hearts on a regular basis. But on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Friday, he did it for reasons other than being the hunky, giggling star of "Blade Runner 2049": He talked about losing his beloved dog.
"He passed away in December," Gosling revealed of his canine companion George, who was 17. "It's funny to say 'dog' because ... there was something about George where I think he felt like being a dog was beneath him. He would not do tricks. If you wanted him even to sit down, you had to convince him it was in his best interest."
Gosling, 36, spoke of George frequently in interviews, calling the mixed breed "the great love of my life" in The Independent in 2013. And over the weekend while he hosted "Saturday Night Live," the actor wore a shirt with the dog's image emblazoned on it.
"George, as he started to age, started looking like an aging rock star," he told DeGeneres. "He was sort of skinny-fat and he had big hair, you know, no teeth, open sores, but still sexy."
Still, he's trying to remember the good times, and with George it does seem there were plenty of those.
"One time we were at an outdoor restaurant and he was sitting on the pavement looking forlorn down the street," recalled Gosling. "Someone got up to go to the restroom, and he, I guess, had had enough and he got up onto their seat and sat down at the table like a gentleman and looked around the table like, 'Yeah, that's right.'"
And even when he's not wearing a shirt with the dog's face on it, Gosling carries a little piece of him wherever he goes: He was wearing George's dog tags on a necklace around his neck during the interview. Will he find a replacement pet?
"We'll see," he said.
Sigh. As any pet owner knows, Gosling may get a new dog ... but he'll never have another George.
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