Ryan Gosling Starred In A Shared TV Universe Before His Rise To Fame

Even the biggest actors can have some of the more humble or awkward beginnings. It's part and parcel of being a movie star; it's not as if A-Listers just arrive fully formed based on the roles with which we associate them most. Sometimes, actors have to put themselves deeply into stage roles, one-off appearances on TV shows, or a solid amount of supporting film roles before they can step up to the big time.

And then, of course, there are the myriad pitfalls of being a child actor. Some actors who start out when they're young in notable shows or films have an awfully hard time making the transition from youth to adult, as much because the industry may have pigeonholed them or audiences themselves can't accept a kid in a new position. (That's especially true when it comes to former Disney/teen idols.) 

All that said, consider Ryan Gosling. Here's a bona fide star, someone who's proven himself in many different genres, from musical dramas like "La La Land" to period pieces like "First Man" and the delightful comedy that is Greta Gerwig's "Barbie." Now, you may already know that Gosling's first true break was appearing in "The All-New Mickey Mouse Club" in 1993 and 1994, with other soon-to-be-massively-famous people like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. You may even know that he appeared in spooky '90s anthology shows like "Goosebumps" and "Are You Afraid of the Dark?". But you may not remember his turn as Young Hercules on a show called ...well, "Young Hercules," which was part of a larger shared genre TV universe in the years before Marvel or Lucasfilm had migrated to the small screen.

Before there was "Young Hercules," there was "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys." That syndicated genre show arrived in America in the mid-1990s, introducing people to Kevin Sorbo as the fabled hero in a version of ancient Greece that didn't fully adhere to the previous legends of Hercules. That show ran for six seasons, and was popular enough to spawn two spin-offs: one was "Xena: Warrior Princess," starring Lucy Lawless as the eponymous heroine, and the other was "Young Hercules," essentially meant to help audiences fill in the gaps of the title character before he became the grown-up. 

In the end, "Xena: Warrior Princess" actually wound up lasting longer than its forebear, airing until 2001. ("Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" finished its sixth season in 1999.) As those two series aired in syndication, "Young Hercules" was part of the Fox Kids line-up of late-'90s shows, airing for a single season in 1998 and 1999. That single season, though, included 50 episodes with Gosling playing Young Hercules, stepping in for the actor Ian Bohen, who had portrayed the younger version of the hero in four episodes of the Sorbo-led series as well as the pilot movie. (Bohen is perhaps not as big a name as Gosling, but he's appeared on shows like "Teen Wolf" and "Yellowstone" in recurring roles.)

It is perhaps telling that even a supercut of Gosling's purported "best moments" on "Young Hercules" is less a detailed montage and more a handy set of a few clips of him in a notably low-budget setting. While Gosling himself is Canadian, and a couple of the titles noted above, like "Goosebumps," from his early days were shows shot in Vancouver, "Young Hercules" was filmed in New Zealand. Seeing as the series, developed by Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi (you read that right), followed in the footsteps of "Xena" and "Hercules" in its location, you would think it might've had a higher budget, considering some of the big-name productions, like Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" franchise, that've filmed in New Zealand since. But it was pretty clearly the opposite.

Indeed, the show's 50 episodes were directed by a combination of just four directors, and they often filmed episodes in chunks to cut down on costs. More notably, while "Xena" and "Hercules" were undeniably successful shows, creating impassioned fanbases online and allowing actors like Lawless to parlay their work into a lifetime of genre success, "Young Hercules" only aired for the one season. It eventually wrapped up in May of 1999, becoming but a footnote in the lifespan of one of our biggest movie stars today.

Ryan Gosling is not even close to being the only major actor who started out on TV playing not so flattering or otherwise positively unmemorable roles. Consider George Clooney, whose TV career was so extensive that a decade before he starred on the pioneering hospital drama "ER," he was a co-star on the hospital sitcom "E/R". And that's not even noting the coincidence that Gosling took over for Clooney in "The Notebook" a decade later. 

All the same, Gosling hadn't even broken out in films when he starred as the title character in "Young Hercules," seeing as his co-starring work in the Disney sports drama "Remember the Titans" wouldn't be on people's radars until its release in the fall of 2000. Gosling turns 45 in 2025, and he's already had an impressive career spanning so many different genres, even if he seems most comfortable in either the most outrageous comic roles or the most intense and serious genre work (from the aforementioned "Barbie" to "Blade Runner 2049"). But like most old-fashioned movie stars, Gosling has stayed away from the small screen since he hit it big as an actor, outside of his multiple hosting gigs on "Saturday Night Live."

But for Gosling, it all started on the small screen. Here's an actor you can believe as an action hero (as in the now-popular streaming title "The Fall Guy"), a romantic lead, a surprisingly energetic comic performer, and a believable dramatist, too. Yet, it's somehow perversely enjoyable to see someone of his caliber on the small screen. He's not quite slumming it; it's not the same as someone working in TV now who may have established themselves on the big screen and seems to be phoning it in to cash a paycheck. Unlike some actors, whose energy and charisma are undeniable even in the smallest roles, you can't quite watch him in "Young Hercules" and see the depth and wealth of talent that Gosling had to offer in his future work. 

If anything, though, that just makes it more remarkable how Gosling was able to soar in the 21st century. He may have technically had a heroic beginning on "Young Hercules," but it was also a pretty humble way for him to push his way into the industry.