Ryan Gosling is having one of the best days of his life. The Project Hail Mary star is heading to the Days of Our Lives set after connecting with soap opera actress Deidre Hall, whom he recently praised on a podcast.

Earlier this week, Gosling appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he gushed to host Josh Horowitz about his early love of soap operas and specifically Days of Our Lives. The actor praised the daytime actors on the long-running series for their hard work, noting that they “do not get the love they deserve.”

“The amount they have to memorize the night before is like 10 pages of dialogue. They get one take,” Gosling said.

Gosling also praised Hall specifically, recalling a 1994 storyline in which her character, Marlena — whom Hall has portrayed since 1976 — was possessed by a supernatural force. (Marlena was later possessed again in 2021.)

“What’s amazing is I remember thinking like, ‘God, Deidre Hall is a great actress because she’s having to act possessed right now,’” Gosling said.

Hall caught wind of the praise and on Thursday thanked Gosling for his appreciation in an Instagram video shared on Horowitz’s page. Hall said that she played the podcast in the Days of Our Lives dressing and makeup rooms, and that everyone on set was “thrilled” that Gosling had spoken so highly of the show.

“It would be nice if you wanted to come over and see what we do in our neck of the woods,” she said. “So this is an open invitation to visit the Days of Our Lives set.”

On Friday, Gosling responded to the video in a post on his partner Eva Mendes’s Instagram account. (Gosling does not have an Instagram account of his own.) The La La Land star said he’d be very happy to check out the set.

“This is a very enthusiastic yes to a very cordial invitation to visit you on set,” Gosling said. “I will be there to thank you in person for being my OG acting inspiration. It wasn't Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. It wasn't [Robert] De Niro in Taxi Driver. It was you.”

The moment was huge for soap opera fans. In the comments section of Gosling’s post, one person wrote, “As someone who idolized soap stars instead of movie stars, I love this SO much!” Another joked, “Ryan could come back from outer space as JR Ewing’s son who is actually also really Marlena’s long lost son that she can't remember having when she was possessed #plottwist.”

And another commented, “The power of the internet is amazing!! We didn’t know we needed this and I can’t wait to watch this unfold! The joy this has brought me already is crazy!!”

Gosling has never appeared on a soap opera, but he got his start in TV prior to his breakout film roles. As a child actor, he appeared in shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark? before going on to star in 50 episodes of the series Young Hercules as the titular character.