Ryan Gosling believed Russell Crowe was the 'rugby whisperer'

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. Photo / Getty Images

Ryan Gosling was amazed by Russell Crowe's Rugby League knowledge after the Aussie actor made him a South Sydney game - but all was not as it seemed.

Gosling appears alongside Crowe in The Nice Guys, a story about a private eye who teams up with a hired enforcer to investigate a girl's disappearance and a porn star's death.

Ryan Gosling as Holland March and Russell Crowe as Jackson Healy in the film The Nice Guys.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Gosling, 35, told the audience one night out with his co-star off set was enough after Crowe hired out a bar to watch a South Sydney Rabbitohs match and unleashed the alcohol.

"I sat down next to him and he had a big iced chest of ginger beer and a big iced chest of vodka and he just kept pouring me drinks," Ryan grimaced. "And I was like, 'I have to do this I'm going to be working with this guy, I have to do this, I have to try and at least go like one for three.'"

Ryan added that as his alcohol intake increased he started to believe that Russell was the "rugby whisperer", due to his ability to know exactly where and how the players were going to move.

"I'm getting more and more soupy as the night goes on, and by the end of the night, I look around and everyone's wearing white hats. I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole because they all have these rabbits, and I look at the TV screen and Russell's on the TV, accepting this trophy, and he's got his arm around me in Atlanta," Ryan laughed.

Once he made his excuses and left the venue, Ryan headed to work the next morning, where his castmates informed him the game they had been watching was a taped one.

Gosling appeared on Jimmy Kimmel just hours before it was revealed that he and Eva Mendes had welcomed their second daughter together last month. But he made no mention of the new addition to his family - Amada Lee Gosling - on the show.

He did however apologise for the ensemble he was wearing - a grey trouser suit with a white shirt."I have to admit something. I didn't try this suit on before I came out and I realise that it's so tight," he said, to cheers from the audience.

"It's wildly inappropriate - I feel like I'm going steady with these pants."I'm sorry, this is a classy joint and I just took it into the gutter. I can't feel my calves!"

- WENN