Ryan Gosling Quotes

Westerns was why I got into the business. I grew up on a small farm in California and all I ever wanted to do was to play gangsters and cowboys in movies.

James Cagney, Steve McQueen, I loved all those guys. I grew up loving the movies but had no desire to be in them.

Barbara Stanwyck movies drove me nuts, like 'Ball of Fire' and 'Double Indemnity.' I used to go cuckoo when I would see those films.

I'm influenced by those '40s, '50s, and '60s films: things like 'The Apartment' - I was a big fan of Billy Wilder.

I was big on movies when I was little. I always wanted to be certain actresses and do my thing like that.

I loved 'Life is Beautiful' and action films are great, like 'Die Hard.' My favourite is the mob film - 'Goodfellas,' 'The Godfather,' 'Once Upon a Time In America,' anything with Robert De Niro in it.

Believe it or not, but 'White Heat' and 'Little Caesar' keep dancing around in my brainpan while I'm writing 'Moonshine.'

I used to stay up very late at night, much later than I probably should have for such a youngster, and I used to watch very old black-and-white movies with, you know, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but I remember watching them thinking 'I could do that'... Even though I wasn't inclined at all to actually become an actress. I mean, that wasn't something that was... in the stars for me, no pun intended.

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.

I thought every other kid was like me. I'd watch films and act them out on my own and wish I could be one of the actresses. When I saw 'Pride And Prejudice,' the one with Colin Firth, I just absolutely knew that was what I wanted to do, and for 'Cranford' to be my first job was poetic, really.

From a very young age, I wanted to be an actor, but I lived in a very small town in Florida where there weren't any opportunities for that.

The very first idea I ever had about making a film... my first thought about ever being a filmmaker was when I was sixteen years old and I wanted to make a Viking movie. And I wanted to make it in old Norse, which I was studying at the time. It's odd because at that age that's a stupidly ridiculous idea 'cause how will I ever be a filmmaker.

I thought I'd be doing theater, really. That's all I had experience with growing up. I mean, I saw movies and television, but I don't think I really connected at a young age that that was acting, that that was part of the profession.

Obviously I am not the young man who came to Hollywood in 1946.

Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that I was a complete Hitchcock fanatic from age 9.

The first film that I can remember seeing where, like, I just couldn't stop watching it - and it didn't necessarily make me want to be a director because I was so young, but it made me know that that's what I wanted to be doing - was 'Alien.' And I saw that when I was probably just over 10 years old.

I was a very confident child. I knew I wanted to be an actress from the age of 5.

I was supposed to go to drama school and then go to New York and do theatre. But I grew up on all those fabulous movies and had read all the bold Hollywood books, and I thought I just had to take a look.

I enjoyed acting growing up; I did musical theater. I had a secret desire to be a television and movie actress, but it wasn't something I admitted to myself that I wanted to do, I guess.

Well, the first thing I wanted to be was a carpenter. Then I wanted to be a painter and then a singer. It was when I first saw 'Lawrence of Arabia' that I wanted to be an actor.

I guess being French, I love Hollywood. I love Hollywood movies. Joseph Mankiewicz's 'All About Eve.' 'Mildred Pierce.'

It was really in the Golden Age, between the two world wars, when the pure detective story - of which the locked room mystery is really the ultimate form - became popular.

I always felt that I was born in the wrong era. I wanted to be friends with John Garfield, for instance.

My parents weren't involved in show business, but my parents would show me. We'd watch old films in the house. Little film festivals of Westerns and stuff like that when I was a kid. I knew I wanted to be those guys in those movies before I knew what being an actor was.

The first movie I did that was inspired by true events was 'Apollo 13.'