Joke war rages as Ryan Gosling faces accusations of being 'funny' thief

Bill Hader once made a jest about the 1980s film Elephant Man. However, years later, Ryan Gosling repeated a pretty much similar punchline leading the internet to believe the rockstar has stolen the joke.

In a run-up to this year's Oscars, the eagle-eyed observers point to one of the actor's promotional interviews for Barbie where the interviewer asked him, "What movie makes you cry? I ask everyone this question and The Notebook is the number one movie that makes people cry."

"Really, not Elephant Man?" he responded and doubled down after the interviewer expressed shockness, "Elephant Man would be mine."

At that moment, the 43-year-old told the joke to W Magazine, "It's too sad though. One time I saw it in the theatre and halfway through when Elephant Man got these brushes and he was going to give them back and this lady screamed."

He continued, "The guy behind me went 'get her Elephant Man'. And I realised that he thought he was that like Wolf Man or something," adding, "It was like he'd been enduring the saddest thing ever, he's just like 'get her Elephant Man'."

Here, the sharp monitors on the internet dug up an old interview of Barry star in 2020 where he told an identical joke.

"A friend of mine told me, he saw Elephant Man in the theatre and there was a scene when Elephant Man's talking to the singer, woman, and it's [a] very sweet, gentle scene and she's like of looking at him like he's a human," he told Eli Roth's History of Horror: Uncut.

He continued, "And she's saying 'it's so nice to meet you' and there's this quiet moment and the guy in the theatre went 'kill her Elephant Man,' noting, "Like, he was like 'this is a monster movie right?"