Story Behind Ryan Gosling German Awards Show Prank

In the latest award season mishap for La La Land, a German awards show, on live TV, gave a trophy to a Ryan Gosling impersonator.

The Goldene Kamera awards, one of Germany’s most prestigious award galas, thought they had the Oscar-nominated star on hand to accept the prize for best international film on behalf of La La Land.

Instead, they gave the prize to Ludwig Lehner, a Ryan Gosling double.

The mixup was all an elaborate prank orchestrated by German comedians Joko Winterscheidt and Klaas Heufer-Umlauf, who fooled the Goldene Kamera organizers into inviting the fake Gosling.

Lehner, who works as a cook in Munich, bares a passing resemblance to Gosling — albeit a chunkier, Germanic version — but as soon as he opened his mouth, the jig was up.

“Good evening, I am Ryan Gosling,” said Lehner in a heavy German accent, before adding “I dedicate this prize to Joko and Klaas.”

The comedic duo set up the prank for their own television show, the popular weekly comedy and variety series Circus Halligalli, and on Tuesday night laid out in detail how they pulled it off.

In early January, the pair set up a fake booking agency — Conrad, Hertz & Gravemann — and contacted the award show organizers, Funke Mediengruppe, telling them Gosling would be in Hamburg on a shoot and would love to attend their event.

“We were sure it would never work,” Heufer-Umlauf told Meedia, a German media industry paper, about the prank, which the local industry here has already branded #GoslingGate.

But Goldene Kamera was apparently so eager to get Gosling on their show, they agreed to a series of demands — that Gosling would not walk the red carpet or meet with the show’s host before hand, that he would be surrounded by private security at all times and that the show would not announce his participation before the live broadcast.

Immediately after his acceptance speech — watched with a mix of confusion and mild amusement by the celebrities in the crowd including Jane Fonda, Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell — the two comedians posted a video of their rehearsals with Lehner, where he runs through his speech.

Then, in a scene strangely reminiscent of Oscar night, the host of the German awards show told the audience, “Sorry, there’s been a mistake.”

Check out the video of the fake Ryan Gosling accepting his prize below.

How Two German Comedians Pranked an Awards Show With a Fake Ryan Gosling

Scott Roxborough

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