Taylor Swift Had The Best Response To Ryan Gosling's SNL Monologue
Two Hollywood A-listers created their own version of one of Taylor Swift's biggest songs of all time ... and the pop superstar fully approves.
Swift — who's on a break from her record-smashing Eras Tour and is set to release her new studio album, "The Tortured Poets Department," on April 19 — took a moment out of her busy schedule to comment on Ryan Gosling's "Saturday Night Live" monologue from April 13, where he presented his own version of her crushing breakup ballad "All Too Well." (The song famously expanded to a 10-minute version when Swift released her "version" of her studio album "Red," but Gosling kept it a bit shorter than that.)
"You know, when you play a character that hard, that long, just letting go feels like a breakup and for processing a breakup, there's really only one thing that can help: The music of the great Taylor Swift," Gosling said before donning sunglasses and sitting down at a piano to begin his take on "All Too Well," which described how much he misses playing Ken in the "Barbie" movie and how he feels he can't truly let the character go.
On X (formerly known as Twitter), Swift herself posted the full clip with the caption, "All Too Well (Ryan and Emily's Version) !!!"
"Watch me accidentally catch myself singing this version on tour," she then joked before concluding, "This monologue is EVERYTHING" (followed by two "heart-hand" emojis, one of Swift's signatures, and two clapping emojis).
Emily Blunt joined Ryan Gosling as a surprise during his SNL monologue
Taylor Swift has good taste; Ryan Gosling's "SNL" monologue was delightful, entertaining, and even had some surprises in store. At first, Gosling is just alone with the piano; before long, he dons Ken's giant white fur coat while singing, "I shredded Venice Beach it's true / My clothes were tight / But something about that spandex felt so right / I left my rollerblades in that big pink house / But I still got that fur coat and I'll wear that right now."
After Gosling continued ("If I said that I was doing fine, you know I'd be lying / 'Cause I was just Ken and now I'm just Ryan"), his "The Fall Guy" co-star — and fellow "Barbenheimer" veteran — Emily Blunt joined him onstage, jokingly irate; she was told the two would be performing stunts together to promote their new action comedy, and was livid that he was wasting all his time singing his version of Swift's beloved song. "I was gonna hit you with things and instead you're singing about Ken again," Blunt said firmly. "Look here, you're 'Kenning' right now, and I hate that's even a verb. I resent that."
Still, the lure of Swift's all-timer of a breakup song was eventually too much for Blunt to resist and soon enough, she joined in with lyrics of her own, talking about how much she misses her supporting role in Christopher Nolan's award-winning historical epic "Oppenheimer." Eventually, the two duet to their version of "All Too Well" complete with props representing both films, making for a particularly excellent start to Gosling's "SNL" episode.
Ryan Gosling had an iconic run as Ken, thanks to Barbie
Taylor Swift might have been Time's Person of the Year in 2023, but it's undeniable that Ryan Gosling's press tour for the "Barbie" movie — and his full-hearted commitment to Ken — was nearly as big of a sensation as Swift's world tour. Before the joint WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike brought all press to a screeching halt just before Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie released on July 21, 2023, Gosling was making waves simply by promoting the movie, showing off his immense "Kenergy" on a near-constant basis.
Gosling's performance as Ken didn't end when the film released; when he scored his third Oscar nomination for the role in "Barbie," he continued to imbrace his inner Kenergy and rode that wave all the way to the 96th Academy Awards. During the ceremony, Gosling brought the house down with a live performance of "I'm Just Ken" — which even featured a surprise cameo by Slash — and showed off the actor's range as he paid homage to classic Hollywood and mimicked "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" from "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." It might be time, at this point, for Gosling to move on to other projects and lay down Ken's fur coat ... but the truth is that as long as Gosling wants to pay homage to this role, "Barbie" fans are fine with it, and he may have just endeared himself to the Swifties too.