Ryan Gosling Holds Back Tears Of Pain While Watching His Childhood Self Dance

A dancer's work is never done. Nor, apparently, does it ever leave him alone — not even 25 years after the fact. Before he was nailing the Dirty Dancing lift in Crazy, Stupid Love and doing his best Fred Astaire in Golden Globe-winning La La Land, Ryan Gosling was cutting a rug in Canada — in Hammer pants. It was a couple years ago when we first saw 12-year-old Gosling's impressive appearance as the only fella in his otherwise all-female, purple-clad dance troupe, and we've never forgotten. Fortunately, neither has talk-show host Graham Norton. This week Gosling appeared on Norton's show alongside Ben Affleck, Sienna Miller, and his La La Land love Emma Stone. Norton cheerily went around the circle of stars to reminisce, remembering Miller's early modeling career and showing some goofy photos of Affleck and Stone as kids. But the true walk — or rather, shimmy — down memory lane was reserved for Gosling, who was forced to rewatch his youthful stint on what he told Norton was "some kind of Canadian Star Search." Gosling cringes through the entire performance, which he notes was his team's fierce competition against a couple of pretty evil-seeming tap dancer twins — "like the twins from The Shining," he explained. But as painful as the dancing is to watch, Gosling's got a soft spot for the costume. "I wish I could say someone said, 'Here, you have to wear this,'" Gosling sheepishly told Norton. "But that was my idea." "I don't think we gave them enough of a shot," Gosling added, wistfully, of the Hammer pants trend. There's still time, Ryan. There's still time.