Justin Bieber, Keanu Reeves, Ryan Reynolds and 7 other Canadian stars you probably thought were American

There is no better way to rub a Canadian up the wrong way than by claiming one of their celebrity compatriots is American. And yet, it remains the easiest of mistakes to make – with the vast majority of Canadians in the entertainment industry choosing to leave their sparsely populated rural nation to find fame south of the border, where they settle seamlessly, and often appear to shed anything obviously identifying them as being from anywhere else like an unneeded spare skin. While many musicians – such as Drake, Joni Mitchell and Alanis Morissette – have somehow woven a Canadian identity into their media narrative, many more A-listers, especially actors, find their roots readily forgotten.

So to avoid any awkward moments next time you’re chatting with Canadian friends new and old, here are 10 Canadians you probably thought were American. And yes, the number of good-looking leading men is statistically unusual indeed.

Ryan Gosling

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An easy contender for most boyfriend-jealousy-inducing face of the past half-decade, Ryan Gosling has been the suave Hollywood heartthrob carrying everything from financial crisis comedy The Big Short to musical throwback La La Land to long-awaited sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049 – to even playing quintessential American icon Neil Armstrong in First Man. But it’s all just acting, darling – Gosling was born to French-Canadian, Mormon parents – and at 18 made a brave move to … nope, not Hollywood, New Zealand.

Justin Bieber

The Biebs has never exactly been shy to claim his Canadian heritage, it’s just that his actions – from the global radio-blotting success to his penchant for fast cars, egg-throwing – and their consequences (court appearances, being banned from China) tend to speak louder than any words. And there’s something so charmingly “American dream” about his ascent, via YouTube, from parochial rural kid to child superstar with very public growing pains (did someone say Britney?). But let the record state once and for all: Justin Bieber was born and raised in Ontario. So there.

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Pamela Anderson

While her face and physique will forever be associated with the sun-kissed sands of California, quintessential beach bimbo Pamela Anderson was born and raised in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada, and got her first modelling break in Vancouver. She moved to Los Angeles in her early twenties, to pursue risqué pin-up opportunities with Playboy and others, landing her career-making role as Baywatch’s CJ Parker in 1992, the year she turned 25.

Keanu Reeves

Okay, the anointed saviour of humankind in The Matrix has a pretty complicated story – born in Beirut and of Chinese, English, Irish, Native Hawaiian and Portuguese descent – he spent parts of his youth in Hawaii, Australia and New York. However, the man, also remembered as John Wick, was mainly raised in Toronto and still holds Canadian nationality. Boom.

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Matthew Perry

Best known as the quintessentially acerbic New Yorker – Chandler Bing in world-slaying sitcom Friends – Matthew Perry was actually born in 1969 in the northwestern American city of Williamstown, Massachusetts, but moved to the Canadian capital soon afterwards, when his parents divorced before his first birthday. Perry moved to Los Angeles at the age of 15 to pursue a career in acting, achieving nationwide fame a decade later with the debut of Friends, which ran for 10 years on NBC and earned him more millions than was perhaps wise. He holds both Canadian and American citizenships.

Hayden Christensen

The commanding face of baddy-turned-goody Anakin Skywalker in the underwhelming early-2000s Star Wars films (known as “prequel trilogy” by those who care about such things) was readily dismissed as another American hero, but those boyish good looks remain 100 per cent Vancouver born and raised.

Kim Cattrall

Who would have thought that New York’s man-eating queen of sass, that the harbinger of post-feminist predatory dating etiquette, that Sex in the City’s Samantha Jones, was Canadian all along? Not just Canadian – but Canadian-British too, with her roots firmly in the prudest nation of the English-speaking world. Born in Liverpool, Cattrall moved to British Columbia at three months old, and pursued her acting dreams in New York City aged 16 – but was well into her forties when she bagged a role on the HBO series which would make her a household name. Boggling.

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Jim Carrey

Few might imagine that the overactive, lowbrow sugar-kick star of Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber (all, amazingly, from 1994) was anything but a thoroughbred Yankee. By that time, the then-32-year-old Carey had already spent close to a decade honing his all-American shtick in the comedy clubs and sketch shows of entertainment capitals New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. But that’s only because his screwball stage show initially bombed in Canada, and he once told The Hamilton Spectator he’d be working in a steel mill in his native Ontario if things hadn’t worked out south of the border. The world of comedy may breath an almighty sigh.

Neil Young

“I’m Canadian, by the way,” legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young, snarled on recent track Already Great, with barely disguised bitterness. Born in Toronto and raised in Ontario, Young illegally sneaked over the US border in an old hearse in the mid-1960s, something that was conveniently overlooked when the millions started rolling just a few years later. Despite being a fierce critic of American politics, with Donald Trump the latest target of his vitriol (George Bush Jnr was honoured with a catchy little ditty entitled Let's Impeach the President), Young stoically maintained his Canadian citizenship for years – until January 2020 when, at the age of 74, he made the contrary decision to finally take additional US citizenship. But he’s still Canadian, really.

Ryan Reynolds

Perhaps overshadowed by his marriage to a pair of blonde, buxom, all-American starlets – former beau Scarlett Johansson and current wife Blake Lively – Ryan Reynolds’ Canadian heritage is easily written out of his Hollywood success story.

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But long before he was Deadpool, Reynolds was raised in Vancouver and first found success in Canadian soap Hillside (distributed south of the border as Fifteen). What is it about Canada and hot leading men?

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