How exactly did Ryan Gosling become the man this year? Sure, fans of The Notebook always loved him, but who else was really checking for him back in, oh, 2007?

According to Entertainment Weekly executive editor Kristen Baldwin, Gosling’s ascent is no accident. She says quality work + star presence = crazy buzz.

“He’s a star because he’s given three amazing performances this year,” said Baldwin in our Media Beat interview. He’s incredibly, ridiculously handsome — like, it’s almost offensive how handsome he is — and then he’s just kind of a character. He stopped a fight on the street, you know?”

Squashing a beatdown can indeed increase your Twitter mentions, but Baldwin says aspiring A-listers don’t have to resort to such tactics to land in the pages of EW. “We don’t really get into their personal lives… we wanna talk about their work.”

Part 1: Entertainment Weekly‘s Kristen Baldwin Talks ‘Entertainers of the Year’
Part 2: Kristen Baldwin on Bringing EW to Tablets: ‘We really wanted to wait until we got it right’