Age: 45
male
Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. Prominent in independent film, he has also worked in blockbuster films of varying genres, and has accrued a worldwide box office gross of over 1.9 billion USD. He has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, and nominations for two Academy Awards and a BAFTA Award. Born and raised in Canada, he rose to prominence at age 13 for being a child star on the Disney Channel's The Mickey Mouse Club (1993–1995), and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs, including Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1995) and Goosebumps (1996). His first film role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in The Believer (2001), and he went on to star in several independent films, including Murder by Numbers (2002), The Slaughter Rule (2002), and The United States of Leland (2003). Gosling gained wider recognition and stardom for the 2004 romance film The Notebook. This was followed by starring roles in a string of critically acclaimed independent dramas including Half Nelson (2006), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Gosling co-starred in three mainstream films in 2011, the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love and the action drama Drive, all of which were critical and commercial successes. He then starred in the acclaimed financial satire The Big Short (2015) and the romantic musical La La Land (2016), the latter of which won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Further acclaim followed with the science fiction thriller Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and the biopic First Man (2018). In addition to acting, he made his directorial debut in 2014's Lost River.
Dead Until Dark, like the rest of the series, is narrated by Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress from the small fictional Louisiana town of Bon Temps, not far from the non-fictional town of Shreveport. It is set during the early 2000s, approximately the same time as the book's publication. In the world of the novel, vampires (and other supernatural creatures) are a reality. Sookie Stackhouse falls in love with the vampire, Bill Compton, whom she met at the diner she works at, Merlotte's, owned by Sam Merlotte. At some point in the recent past, Sookie tells us, the invention of synthetic blood, called Tru Blood, has made it unnecessary for vampires to feed on humans for sustenance, thus allowing the world's previously underground vampire community to reveal its existence to humans. Also relevant to plot development is the fact that vampire blood accelerates healing, increases strength, improves the libido, and make the person who drinks it better-looking.
