Disappointingly, Ryan Gosling did not come out of hiding last week to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Notebook, the weepy romance that launched him into heartthrob-dom. Now a Serious Actor, Gosling refused to shill for the iconic film (by cable TV standards) by doing a few quick junket interviews from a rowboat underneath rain machines. (Would it really have been that hard?) One person who was willing to discuss the project, though, was director Nick Cassavetes, who gave VH1 a handful of juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits about the film.

The most surprising revelation: that Ryan Gosling butt heads with his co-star (and eventual real-life girlfriend) McAdams so much so that he asked the director to bounce her from set like she was some kind of unruly clubgoer and not his romantic lead:

“[T]hey were really not getting along one day on set. Really not. And Ryan came to me, and there’s 150 people standing in this big scene, and he says, ‘Nick come here.’ And he’s doing a scene with Rachel and he says, ‘Would you take her out of here and bring in another actress to read off camera with me?’ I said, ‘What?’ He says, ‘I can’t. I can’t do it with her. I’m just not getting anything from this.’”

Instead of complying wtih Gosling, Cassavetes tells VH1 how he forced the two into a room together to scream and yell it out together. ‘“The rest of the film wasn’t smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing,” he explains.

Another amazing tidbit: that Ryan Gosling wanted to torch his character’s dream house, which he had painstakingly restored in the film:

Not one to shy away from sharing his ideas, Gosling thought it would be appropriate for Noah to burn down what had become his character’s life’s work. “[Ryan] wants to talk to you about what he’s gonna do. He wants to go prepare for it, feel it, live it, explore other options for it,” Cassavetes said. “He’d come to me and say, ‘Why can’t I burn the house down?’ I’d say, ‘Because I don’t even know what that means.’ And he’d say, ‘Cleansing my fire!’”

Cassavetes also identifies the one person in the world immune to Gosling’s charms: his former co-star, James Garner. Despite Gosling’s best efforts to talk about the character they were both playing (Garner, at a later stage of the character’s life), the Oscar nominee refused to acquiesce and spend any more time than necessary prepping for a film destined to be sold in bargain bins by the grocery checkout. As Nick recalls it:

[Ryan] says, “I was thinking about accents. There’s all kinds of South Carolina accents — one’s more rural” and this and that. [Garner] goes, “I don’t do accents, kid. They’re stupid.” And [Ryan] goes, “Okay. What about eye color? I have blue eyes. You have brown eyes.” He says, “Everyone knows Jim Garner’s got brown eyes. Do what you want, kid.” [Ryan] says, “Okay, I guess I’ll wear contacts. What about hair?” And he says, “Do whatever you want, kid. Nice to meet you. See you later.”

For the rest of Cassavetes’s on-set anecdotes from The Notebook, click here.