Ryan Gosling says his Notebook costar Rachel McAdams was "one of the great loves of my life" – but when the couple split several months ago, he ended up consoling fans.

"Women are mad at me," Gosling, 26, tells GQ magazine in its November issue. "A girl came up to me on the street and she almost smacked me. Like, 'How could you? How could you let a girl like that go?'"

Gosling, who has been mum about the split up until now, continues, "I feel like I want to give people hugs, they seem so sad. Rachel and I should be the ones getting hugs! Instead, we're consoling everybody else."

The actor and McAdams, 31, began dating shortly after wrapping the romantic film, which won them an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss, but he says their relationship was not like the characters they portrayed.

"God bless The Notebook," Gosling says. "It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that."

Of their actual breakup, he will only say, "The only thing I remember is we both went down swingin' and we called it a draw."

Gosling, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his 2006 film Half Nelson, currently stars in the quirky comedy, Lars and the Real Girl.