RYAN & HIS FALL GUYS

RYAN GOSLING AND HIS TEAM OF DARING STUNTMEN PAY HOMAGE TO HOLLYWOOD'S REAL ACTION HEROES-AND REVEAL THE SCENES THAT SCARED THEM THE MOST

- JACK SMART

By his own admission Ryan Gosling is "not good with heights"--and yet he opens his latest film hanging from wires, about to drop 12 stories down. "I just blacked out. I don't remember any of it," says the three-time Oscar nominee, 43, of the vertigo-inducing plunge. It's one of many in The Fall Guy, which is loosely based on the 1980s action series starring Lee Majors and was conceived as a love letter to cinema's often-overlooked stunt performers. "I would have been happy to say I did none of my own stunts," says Gosling, who coproduced the movie and stars as a stunt double named Colt Seavers. But "it was important that I do a few." Just nothing with flames. "My kids didn't want me to be set on fire," he says of daughters Esmeralda, 9, and Amada, 8, whom he shares with longtime partner Eva Mendes.