This year is the tenth anniversary of The Notebook, a movie I still don’t really “get”. I mean, it’s too sappy. And I guess I’m a stone-cold a—hole. Because it does nothing for me. But for many people, The Notebook is the most romantic thing in the world. For many people, Ryan Gosling was at his best when he was with Rachel McAdams, on and off-screen. But for the tenth anniversary, The Notebook’s director Nick Cassavetes tells VH1 that Rachel and Ryan weren’t always so loved-up.

If Rachel McAdams was a bird, Ryan Gosling didn’t want to be a bird. More details from The Notebook have come out as the beloved film celebrates its 10th anniversary. Director Nick Cassavetes shed some light on what really happened on the set of the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ novel in a new interview with VH1.

Though the film’s stars, McAdams and Gosling, played on-screen lovers and later went on to date for about two years, Cassavetes revealed that on The Notebook set they were often at odds.

“Maybe I’m not supposed to tell this story, but they were really not getting along one day on set. Really not,” the director told VH1. “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.'”

With the tension at a peak, Cassavetes helped the pair work out their issues so the show could go on.

“We went into a room with a producer; they started screaming and yelling at each other,” he recalled. “I walked out. At that point I was smoking cigarettes. I smoked a cigarette and everybody came out like, ‘All right let’s do this.’ And it got better after that. They had it out… I think Ryan respected her for standing up for her character and Rachel was happy to get that out in the open. The rest of the film wasn’t smooth sailing, but it was smoother sailing.”

The fiery tension went on to make for electric on-screen chemistry, and the pair dated from 2005 to 2007 with a brief reunion in 2008.

In 2007, Gosling told GQ Magazine, “God bless The Notebook. It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that.”

[From Us Weekly]

Cassavetes makes Gosling sound like a jerk who acting like a giant bitch to his co-star. But maybe that was just the fiery, emotional “meet-cute” that they needed to unleash their love. I don’t know… is this a cute story? I don’t think so. I’m starting to get this idea of Gosling, based on this story and some of the stories about his relationship with Eva Mendes. I think he likes to micromanage his lady’s career. I think he likes to mansplain what they’re doing wrong. I think he’s hypercritical. And it makes him seem like a douche.

Photos courtesy of Getty, WENN.