Ryan Gosling was born in London, Ontario, Canada and raised in the small city of Cornwall, the son of Donna, a secretary, and Thomas Gosling, a paper mill worker. His parents, who were Mormons, divorced when he was young. He had difficulty in school and often engaged in fights with fellow students. On an appearance on the late night Canadian talk show Open Mike with Mike Bullard, Gosling told of how he was bullied in elementary school (he attended East Front Public School in Cornwall). His mother withdrew him from school and taught him at home from the age of ten. While Gosling's mother was Mormon, he was not raised in a strictly devout household and never really identified with Mormonism. After returning to the public system he went to Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School. The family then relocated to Burlington, Ontario, where Ryan attended Lester B. Pearson High School (Burlington). Gosling dropped out at age seventeen.

When Gosling first came to live in Los Angeles in