Ryan Gosling Reveals He Asked Meryl Streep to Compliment His Mom's Hair at the 2007 Oscars

When Ryan Gosling wanted to make his mom feel better about her beehive hairstyle, he knew the best actress for the job: Meryl Streep

When Ryan Gosling wanted to make his mom feel better about her beehive hairstyle, he knew the best actress for the job: Meryl Streep.

During an interview on The Graham Norton Show that aired Friday, Gosling — alongside his La La Land costar Emma Stone, as well as Sienna Miller and Ben Affleck — talked about his experience at the 2007 Academy Awards. The actor, 36, decided to take his mom Donna and sister Mandi as his dates to the award show.

That year, he earned his first nomination for Best Actor for his role in Half Nelson. But there was more to the evening festivities than his nomination, Gosling revealed.

“The gift room is really the thing she enjoys,” Norton said.

“I don’t want to out my mom like this,” Gosling said, adding, “I will tell a funny story about that picture though.”

Referring a 2007 photo with his mom and her beehive hairdo, Gosling went on to describe their night.

“My mom was convinced by her friend that beehives were gonna be all the rage,” he said. “And if you didn’t have a beehive, you’d feel embarrassed. And it turned out to be the opposite. It was a natural hair vibe that year.”

He continued: “And my mom sat in front of Rachel Weisz and her hair was so high that Rachel had to keep [mimics Weisz leaning to see in front of his mom’s beehive] and my mom kept sinking in her chair and I didn’t know what to do ’cause I was — I wanted to have a nice night, so I didn’t know Meryl Streep but she was sitting next to me and I said in a commercial break, ‘Would you mind just telling my mom you like her hair?’ ”

Superstar Streep’s reaction to his request?

“And she was like, ‘I got this,’ ” Gosling recalled. “And then the commercial went and she goes, ‘Do you know, I was gonna do a beehive and I wish I had.’ And my mom was like, raise the roof all night.”

But his costar was quick to ask if his mother knew the truth behind Streep’s compliment before he talked about it on a British talk show.

“Does she already know that story?” Stone asked.

“My mom? Oh … she doesn’t watch this show,” he said, realizing his 10-year-long secret had been exposed.

But that was just one of Gosling’s cringe-worthy moments on Friday’s show. In one clip, Gosling looked back on his early days as a member of a dance troupe in Canada.

Donning silver harem pants, the only male in the eight person group grooved to the tune of Cathy Dennis’s “Touch Me.”

“I wish I could say someone said, ‘Here you have to wear this,’ but that was my idea,” he admitted ruefully. “I thought, ‘I have a vision for this number. It’s lots of purple and silver Hammer pants.’”