You’ve heard by now the rumor that Matt Damon will be playing a young Captain Kirk in JJ Abrams' new reboot of Star Trek. Well it looks like he’s no longer the only name interested in bossing around Mr. Spock. IESB says Notebook star Ryan Gosling wants to sit in the Captain’s chair.

For some strange reason though, the rumor comes from uber-geek comedian Patton Oswalt who says he heard Gosling wants to be Kirk. Kind of a strange source, but at least it’s not an anonymous one. Anyway Oswalt says he Gosling wants to run the bridge, and he thinks it’d be pretty cool.

I’m with Patton on this one, it would be pretty cool. I love the idea of Matt Damon playing Kirk, but I think I like the idea of Gosling even better. He’s a great actor, he has something close to the right look, and even better he’s a little younger than Damon which might work better for Singer since this is supposed to be about a younger Kirk than we’ve seen before and Damon is already as old as or older than Shatner was when he played Kirk in the original television series. For now this is a pretty wildly unsubstantiated rumor, but one I’d love to see come true.

Meanwhile in other Trek casting rumors, TrekMovie caught an interview with Keri Russell in Entertainment Weekly in which JJ Abrams chimes in and affirms the possibility of her working in Star Trek with him. When asked if he’d be willing to cast Keri as a hot Klingon (something which, Keri Russell’s natural hotness notwithstanding, is impossible) JJ says, “That’d be awesome!” Russell, when presented with the idea is less positive. She says “I’m not that nerdy!” Maybe once Matt Damon or Ryan Gosling is involved she’d be more open to beaming up. It's like jumping in a pool naked... if the water was replaced by a sea of sexed up geeks. Nobody wants to be first.