Twitter takes away the fear of reaching out to people: Ryan Gosling

By Hardev Sanotra

Las Vegas, March 23 (IANS) Ryan Gosling, who has achieved superstar status after his role as a passionate jazz musician in "La La Land", says Twitter takes away the fear of reaching out to people but not the consequence of it.

Gosling was a star attraction here at the Adobe annual summit on Wednesday, and was greeted with whistles and screams from some 12,000 people gathered there. Clearly, the tech world has its shares of movie fans and fawning youngsters.

The actor, singer, dancer and director said he was aware that he was writing to two million fans when he tweets, but said that he took to the social media app only after someone impersonated him and sent out tweets under his false handle.

Adobe Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President Ann Lewnes expressed doubt over whether the actor sent out the tweets. "I have read your stuff and it doesn't sound like you," she said.

But Gosling, who said he was "relieved" not to have got the Oscar, said: "I do tweet myself to the dismay of my father." He was presented on stage by Adobe on Day two of the summit, which largely dealt with tech innovation.

He said he was thrilled that "Moonlight" won the Best Picture Oscar rather than "La La Land" which was widely expected.

"It's such a groundbreaking film made for a million dollars, and I am so happy for them that they were being recognised."

Gosling said he broke into giggles because he thought people had started panicking and that someone had got injured in the theatre. When he realised that it was a reaction to "Moonlight", he was relieved and broke into laughter.

The 36-year-old, a Canadian, joked that he had come to the Summit to learn how to use Photoshop from experts, but all he was getting were questions on his career and films.

To the dismay of Adobe officials, he said he had learnt Final Cut -- an Adobe Photshop rival by Apple -- to edit one of the movies that he had directed. Lewis snarkily remarked that a more "professional" product would have made his life easier and that in future he should go for an Adobe product.

Gosling also spoke of movies never going out of fashion, despite advances in technology.

"We are still watching 'The Wizard of Oz'," he said, adding that "now we are watching it on a handheld device".

What's changed though, he said, was the people were watching movies at home so that "they could spend more time with the characters."

He also mentioned that perhaps movies could be made in shorter chunks, but in a series so that people could watch them more.

"A film is like a one-night stand while a series is a relationship," he said, adding that most people want a relationship.

Adobe had brought in other stars from other fields too, like retired NFL player Peyton Manning and magicians Penn and Taylor who have their own TV show, but it was Gosling who stole the show and got repeated applause and laughter.

(The writer is in Las Vegas at the invitation of Adobe. He can be reached at hardev.sanotra@ians.in)