Ryan Gosling has spoken about working with Emma Stone for the third time in their careers, on the new critically-acclaimed musical La La Land – and reckons they get on so well because she could be secretly Canadian!

The two stars spoke in a Q&A session together at the Toronto International Film Festival this week about their new movie, which received three standing ovations when it was screened on Monday night (September 12th).

“I like working with Emma because I think she's secretly Canadian,” the Canadian native joked. “That's why we get along so well – she's wildly apologetic for no reason.”

Ryan GoslingRyan Gosling stars in 'La La Land' alongside Emma Stone

Stone was similarly complimentary about her co-star when asked to comment. “I just think he's great. I mean, he's a fantastic actor and it's just so much fun to work with him and that's kind of all there is to it, really. It's no more exciting than that or less exciting than that.”

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La La Land sees Stone, 27, playing an aspiring actress named Mia, who is romantically pursued by 35 year old Gosling’s jazz musician character Sebastian. Stone has already won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress when the film was screened at Venice earlier this year.

“We rehearsed for about three months for it,” Stone said of preparing for the musical. “A lot of dancing, a lot of singing. We had to learn to tap and ballroom dance, which was wonderful.”

The pair have previously starred in 2011's Crazy, Stupid, Love and 2013's Gangster Squad together, and the on-screen chemistry they cultivated made it much easier to work together this time around, according to Gosling.

“We made two films together and now three, and so you know it's great to work with people you know,” Gosling said earlier on in the evening at the red carpet photo session. “I think it brings the best out of them because you know one another, and you are able to help each other in a way that you can't if you're strangers.”

La La Land will eventually hit cinemas on wider release on December 12th.

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